(Piacenza 1691–1765 Rome)
Classical scene with the Pyramid of Caius Cestius,
oil on canvas, 94 x 73 cm, framed

Provenance:
with Guglielmo Canessa, Milan, 1957 (as Giovanni Paolo Panini);
sale, Galleria Manzoni, Milan, February 1970, lot 44 (as Giovanni Paolo Panini);
sale, Christie’s, Rome, 15 October 1970, lot 116 (as Andrea Locatelli);
where acquired by the present owner

Literature:
A. Busiri Vici, La “prima maniera” di Andrea Locatelli, in: Palatino, October – December 1967, p. 368, fig. 4 (as Andrea Locatelli);
A. Busiri Vici, Andrea Locatelli, Rome 1976, no. 13 (as Andrea Locatelli);
F. Arisi, Gian Paolo Panini e i fasti della Roma del ’700, Rome 1986, p. 283, no. 121 (as Giovanni Paolo Panini)

We are grateful to David R. Marshall for confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a high resolution digital photograph. Marshall has suggested a date of circa 1716–1718.

The present painting was published by Andrea Busiri Vici as a work of Andrea Locatelli, dating it no later than 1720 and stating that “it is of great quality and contains ideas that Panini reworked in various paintings done in this very period” (see literature). He considered it a pendant of the Classical scene with the pyramid of Caius Cestius (90 x 72 cm) sold at Christie’s in 1970 (lot 117) along with the present painting (see provenance). The present painting was subsequently published by Ferdinando Arisi as an autograph work by Giovanni Paolo Panini. Marshall endorses this attribution and has suggested that the presumed commission of the two pendants was split between the two artists, or that one work was commissioned to form a pair with the other.

Stylistically the angular handling of the relief displays Panini hand from this early period. The straight-sided vase shows: Panini plays variations on such vases at this period, rarely if ever repeating himself, before settling on the classical models such as the Borghese and Medici vases.