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Description: | Signed: yes Description: The centre piece for a series of five paintings produced in 1738 for the decoration of the Great Room at Marble Hill House, the residence of the Countess of Suffolk, Panini's painting Statues in a Ruined Arcade was set in a position of dominance over the room, within a columned frame above the fireplace, specially designed by Grinling Gibbon's successor as 'Master Sculptor' to the crown, James Richards. This painting demonstrates Panini's skill as a master of perspective, its painted arcade aligns perfectly with the columns of its frame and is angled so as to best be viewed on entering the room; this effect is enhanced by the painting's lighting following the natural fall of light from the room's windows. The exacting execution of these details, suggest the painter was aware of the works planned final location when he produced it. The painting's subject, a ruined arcade lined with famous antique sculptures, evokes both the ancient ruins of the baths of Caracalla and the majestic remains of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli. The picture's erroneous late nineteenth-century title The Interior of the Vatican (the Vatican museums were not yet built in 1738) indicate the important influence of this work on the painter Hubert Robert, a probable pupil of Panini, who in the late eighteenth century produced a series of views of the Louvre's galleries in ruins, similarly ornamented with sculpture. The sculpture's in Panini's picture can be identified as the Vatican's Torso Belvedere (far left) and Cincinnatus (far right) and Silenus with the infant Bacchus (second from right) now in the Louvre. The success of this composition is demonstrated by Panini's inclusion of this work in his Interior of an Imaginary Picture Gallery with Views of Ancient Rome (versions in Stuttgart and Boston). | Subjects: | landscape; buildings and gardens (ruins) | Source: | Vads | Creator: | Artist: Panini, Giovanni Paolo (Italian painter, ca. 1692-1765) Æ | Identifier: | http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=8724... | Go to resource |
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