(Beveren-Waes near Antwerp 1599–1664 Turin)
The Race of the Berber Horses, Rome,
oil on canvas, 63 x 91.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
with Apolloni Gallery, Rome;
Paolo Stoppa collection, Rome;
Andrea Busiri Vici D’Arcevia collection, Rome;
Private collection, Rome

Literature:
A. Busiri Vici, Addenda alle scene popolari romane di Jan Miel, in: L’urbe, 3-4, 1977, p. 21;
A. Busiri Vici, Addenda alle scene popolari romane di Jan Miel, in: B. Jatta (ed.), Andrea Busiri Vici d’Arcevia, Scritti d’Arte, Rome 1990, p. 56, fig. 13;
M. Fagiolo, La festa a Roma dal Rinascimento al 1870, Turin 1997, vol. I, p. 233, mentioned under no. A 11

This painting is a lively record of an historic Roman festival, the race of the Berber horses, which was one of the most remarkable and celebrated spectacles during the carnival in Rome. The horses, without jockeys, traditionally started the race at the obelisk at Piazza del Popolo and galloped down the via del Corso to the finish in Piazza Venezia. In the present painting, however, the horses appear to be galloping in the direction towards the Piazza del Popolo. A vast crowd always attended this traditional event, which began in the fifteenth century. Via del Corso, originally called via Lata, was renamed after this annual event, which would be ornamented by additional celebrations hosting masquerades and allegorical carriages.

The location in the present painting is identifiable due to the presence of the Colonna Antonina (the column of Antoninus Pius), which gives its name to the Piazza on the Corso; to the building on the right is Palazzo Verospi, which later passed to the Chigi family who in the mid-seventeenth century altered it architecturally. In the palace courtyard, it is possible to see the celebrated statue of the so-called Verospi Jupiter, which is now in the Vatican Museum; at the time, it was the centrepiece of the family’s collection of antiquities. For the celebrative occasion represented in the present painting, the palace´s façade has been enriched with ornamental awnings and festoons that decorate the columns of the upper stories, while ladies and gentlemen lean from the balconies over the door and at the building’s corner. In the foreground a lively gathering of townsfolk, masked figures and Swiss Guards participate in the event, either in carriages or on foot. Jean Miel described the vitality of the people’s involvement in the celebrations, both through his use of strong colour as well as his descriptive realism of the rich array of humanity present at this carnival event which Goethe described as: ‘una festa che il popolo dà a se stesso’ [‘a celebration the people give to themselves’] (see literature, Fagiolo 1997, p. 170).

Jan Miel dedicated a number of works to the depiction of carnival at Rome such as the Masked Carnival under the Column of Antoninus Pius in Palazzo Barberini, Rome or the Carnival in Piazza Colonna in the Wadsworth Antheneum, Hartford. A copy of the present painting is conserved in the Museo di Roma in Palazzo Braschi.

On his arrival at Rome from Flanders during the 1630s, Jan Miel belonged to the group called the Bamboccianti, spearheaded by Peter Van Laer, and it is in this context that he developed his predilection for representing scenes focused on the activities of everyday people. While Van Laer focused greater attention on landscape, paying less attention to the representation of individuals, Miel reveals a particular interest for narrative and a taste for story telling that even leads him to develop multiple sidereal episodes to a central narrative scene. From the 1640s he dedicated himself to fresco painting and to the production of sacred works for numerous Roman churches. From 1658 he moved definitively to Turin in the service of the Dukes of Savoy.