Alberto Carlieri
(Rome, 1672 - after 1720)
RUINS OF ANCIENT ROME WITH THE PREACHING OF AN APOSTLE
oil on canvas, 72.5x98 cm
ROVINE DELL'ANTICA ROMA CON PREDICA DI UN APOSTOLO
olio su tela, cm 72,5x98
Provenance
- Florence, Pandolfini, Dipinti antichi, sculture, disegni e incisioni, 18 March 2003, lot. no. 705 (as Giovanni Paolo Panini).
Auctioned as a work by Giovanni Paolo Panini according to Ferdinando Arisi, the painting must instead be attributed, with all evidence pointing in that direction, to Alberto Carlieri, a figure now well established among the painters of architectural perspectives and capriccios who flourished between the 17th and 18th centuries, but whose works have long been regarded as early pieces by the painter from Piacenza, despite the early intervention of Hermann Voss, who as early as 1959 had identified signed works by him (“The Painter of Architecture Alberto Carlieri,” in The Burlington Magazine 101, 1959, 681, pp. 443–44).
Credit is therefore due to David Marshall (“The Architectural Piece in 1700: The Paintings of Alberto Carlieri (1672–1720), Pupil of Andrea Pozzo,” in Artibus et Historiae 25, 2004, 50, pp. 39–126) that we owe the credit for having restored the catalog of his works, beginning with Panini’s presumed early works, and for having revealed the distinctive character of a painter who was unmistakable in his architectural rigor - up to date with Father Pozzo’s research on perspective - as well as in the somewhat vacuous grace of his small figures.
Although apparently unknown to Marshall, as well as to Giancarlo Sestieri, who more recently revisited the subject, the painting examined here is comparable to numerous other works by the Roman artist, both in terms of the architecture - adorned with reliefs and figurative sculptures depicting classical and Christian subjects - and the pastel-hued figures that enliven the foreground.