Caspar van Wittel, Vanvitelli (1653 - 1736) View... Lot 309

Caspar van Wittel, Vanvitelli (1653 - 1736) View of Verona, the Adige River at San Giorgio in Braida, c. 1710-1720. Oil on copper 37.6 x 41.5 cm Signature: "CASPAR VAN WITTEL" on a boulder at lower left Distinguishing elements: on verso, center, inverted in red ink "8174"; upper right, in white chalk "OMP" and center "4"; writing in cursive of difficult interpretation followed by an "8" Provenance: Sestieri, Rome; private collection, Rome; antiquarian market, London; Sotheby's, London, 07.12.2005, l. 57 (€ 756,389); private collection, London Bibliography: G. Briganti, "Gaspar van Wittel and the Origin of the Eighteenth-Century View," Rome, 1966, p. 243, cat. 185 ill. (with erroneous support and dimensions); G. Briganti, "Gaspar van Wittel," edited by L. Laureati and L. Trezzani, Milan, 1996, p. 251 cat. 323, ill. (with erroneous support and dimensions); G. Marini, in G. Marini ed., "Bernardo Bellotto a return to Verona. The image of the city in the eighteenth century," exhibition catalog (Verona, Museo di Castelvecchio), Venice, 2002, pp. 18-20 (with erroneous support), ill. p. 19; L. Laureati, in L. Laureati and L. Trezzani, eds., "Gaspare Vanvitelli and the origins of vedutismo," exhibition catalog (Rome, Chiostro del Bramante), Rome, 2003, p. 196. Constraints: the work is in temporary import to Italy.Conservation status. Support: 90% (slight deformation and alterations at the corners, particularly on the right side). Conservation status. Surface: 90% (sporadic retouching as a result of falls and color consumption, especially in the sky and margins) As Laura Laureati recalls in a masterful 2005 study of this work, "Five, including this one, are the views of Verona by Gaspar van Wittel (two on canvas, two on copper and one on panel), all different from each other and all derived from a single preparatory drawing by the painter preserved at the National Library in Rome (Briganti 1996, pp. 251-252 nn. 322-325 and pp. 407- 408 and 410 nn. D344; "Bernardo Bellotto" 2002, pp. 40-43 nn.1-2; "Gaspare Vanvitelli and the Origins of Vedutism," catalog of works edited by L. Laureati and L. Trezzani, Rome 2002, pp. 196-197 nn. 63 Laura Laureati's card). Oddly enough, all five are dated, or datable, between the first and second decade of the eighteenth century as if Gaspar van Wittel, who also must have sojourned on Venetian soil as early as 1694-95, on the occasion of his trip to Venice, had waited at least a decade to develop that drawing, which he had probably already executed since then. The preparatory squared drawing, preserved, like all that important nucleus of Vanvitellian studies, at the Vittorio Emanuele National Library in Rome, dates, almost certainly, to the last decade of the seventeenth century. Compared to the paintings it presents a narrower view of the place depicted. On the left side it is cut off at the height of the dome of San Giorgio in Braida, and in addition the view of the Adige is interrupted at the front, where the floating mill is anchored. That is, the study omits the entire second floor on the left, the street that starts from the Scaliger walls, continues to the house flanked by the beautiful entrance portal that opens onto a tree-lined garden, and ends with the boundary wall of the same property. We can therefore assume that from the bottom to the mill the view, already traced by the painter in the preparatory drawing, is real and that the foreground with the avenue flanked by the wall is instead the result of Vanvitellian invention and the desire to construct a pictorially balanced composition, an expedient this frequent in the work of the Dutch master. Of a different opinion is Flavia Pesci who, in the catalog entry for the recent exhibition of Veronese views by Bellotto and other artists, about Gaspar van Wittel's "Veduta di Verona" preserved in the Galleria Palatina in Florence, writes that the existence of the rusticated portal house is confirmed, in general, by a group of buildings documented in topographical prints of the city (in Bernardo Bellotto.. 2002, p.42)." This "View of Verona by Gaspar van Wittel" - the scholar points out - is "a fundamental document for an ideal reconstruction of the original appearance of the city walls, built by Cangrande della Scala, and precisely for that stretch from the bastion of the Boccare to the bastion of San Giorgio, a stretch demolished by the Austrians at the end of the 19th century. (... continued: complete sheet in the catalog pdf at the link https://goforarts.com/doc/VB_IT_2_2/Meraviglie_Atto_II_HR.pdf . The catalog also includes lots not available on online platforms, including many of the most prestigious).