Girl Reading: Corinthian Temple Front, Colonnades Attached to an Arch Cell. Frontal Arch, and Coulisse Statue
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 65 x 49 cm h x w x d: Ram 74 x 58 x 7 cm
Inventory numberNM 120
AcqusitionTransferred 1866 from Kongl. Museum (Martelli 1804)
Other titlesTitle (sv): Klassiska kolonnbyggnader Title (en): Girl Reading: Corinthian Temple Front, Colonnades Attached to an Arch Cell. Frontal Arch, and Coulisse Statue Previous: Classical Buildings with Columns
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 20: FORMER INV. NOS.: 265 (M. 1796–97); 219 (F. 1798); 166 (M. 1804); KM 859. TECHNICAL NOTES: The support consists of two pieces of thin, sparsely woven, plain-weave linen fabric sewn together vertically, 2 cm from the left side of the painting. It has been lined on a coarse linen canvas and mounted with staples on a Martelli strainer. The tacking edges have been cropped, and the painting has probably been made smaller. The ground is red and covers the whole support. There are only a few old retouches. Some parts of the paint layer have become transparent with time, rendering the underlying paint visible. The painting is in good condition. Documented restorations: 1995: Surface dirt removed. Consolidation of flaking colour. Retouching; 2003: Cleaning. Local varnishing. PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804 BIBLIOGRAPHY: NM Cat. 1867, p. 9 (as Panini); Sander 1872–76, III, p. 107, no. 166 (as Panini); Göthe 1887, p. 189 (as Panini); NM Cat. 1958, pp. XXXII, p. 150 (Panini, school of); Arisi 1961, p. 235 (Panini, imitator of); Arisi 1986, cat. 13, p. 223, ill. (as Panini); NM Cat. 1990, p. 144 (as Ghisolfi); Marshall 2004, pp. 53, 60, ill, cat. AC116, p. 112-113. In the earliest inventories of the Martelli Collection, the present painting was listed as a work by Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691–1765), an attribution that was confirmed by Ferdinando Arisi in his Panini studies of 1961 and 1986.¹ When Anthony M. Clark visited the Nationalmuseum in the late 1960s, he must have seen the painting, since the files of the Museum note his reattribution of it to the Milanese artist Giovanni Ghisolfi (1623–1683). In 1997, David R. Marshall launched a different hypothesis, proposing the relatively unknown Roman quadraturista Alberto Carlieri as the author of NM 119.² Marshall expanded his argument in 2004 and presented this painting as part of his initial catalogue of Carlieri’s known work.³ The painting, which can clearly be assigned to Carlieri’s oeuvre on the basis of Marshall’s thorough scholarship, evidences the artist’s dependence upon his master Andrea Pozzo (1642–1709). Basic knowledge concerning the quadraturista’s handling of architecture was clearly provided by Pozzo, but, as Marshall points out, Carlieri had to draw on alternative sources for the purely decorative aspects of his canvases, finding them in artists such as Niccolò Codazzi, Alessandro Salucci and Giovanni Ghisolfi.⁴ According to Marshall’s nomenclature, the Nationalmuseum painting is one of the artist’s vertical ruin pieces. The varied presence of moving and seated figures, interacting with the carefully laid-out ruined architecture, enhances the theatrical quality of the scenery and contributes to the decorative ambitions of the artist. SNE 1 Arisi 1961; Arisi 1986. 2 Marshall 1997, pp. 137–199. 3 Marshall 2004, pp. SNE [End]
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category