Ruines antiques animées de personnages. Atelier de Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691-1765)

Characters conversing at the foot of an ancient portico, next to a fountain

Oil on canvas
Presented in a very beautiful gilded wooden frame with gadroon and pearl motifs (18th century period)

Total dimensions: 90 x 77 cm. The canvas alone: 75 x 60 cm.

Giovanni Paolo Panini (Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, 1691 - Rome, 1765) is an Italian Baroque painter.
From his first training, in the Bibbiena community, he retained a taste for scenography which marked him throughout his career in Rome, where he settled from 1711.
There, he was first a student of B. Luti, whose Maratta-style classicism only influenced him for a short period.
As a painter, Panini is best known for his views of Rome, in which he shows particular interest in the city's antiquities. Among his most famous works are his views of the Pantheon, and his vedute and gallery paintings of views of Rome. Most of his works, especially those of ruins, reflect the fantasy, the taste for the unreal and the imagination of this painter. This is an important characteristic of this artist called “capriccio”. Panini also painted portraits, including one for Pope Benedict XIV.
His style influenced a number of Vedutists, such as his student Antonio Joli, as well as Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto and Hubert Robert who especially inherited his interest in ancient ruins.
His compositions, sometimes immense, often have the value of real "slices of life" cut out from the framework of the ancient and modern monuments of Rome (Quirinal Square and Santa Maria Maggiore Square, 1742, Rome, Quirinal); they remain among the most attractive testimonies of the time. Gifted with exceptional talent as a scenographer, Pannini always gave his performances a grandiose sense of space; he achieves monumental effects, contrasting with the verve displayed in the description of the figurines which populate his scenes...

Origin :
Former collection of King Louis Philippe (1773-1850), according to an inscription on the back on the canvas.

Beautiful original condition. Sold with a certificate of expertise