(Amersfoort 1653–1736 Rome)
An Ideal Landscape,
oil on canvas, 48 x 100 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection;
where purchased by the present owner

We are grateful to Laura Laureati for confirming the attribution after examination of the present painting in the original.

Some of the most typical aspects of van Wittel’s manner of painting are in evidence in the present painting, specifically, the light rippling on the water in the foreground, the reflections on the transparent surface of the lake and the sharpness with which the whole monastery complex on the left is depicted.

The present view is, according to Laureati, an imaginary or invented location: that is, it unites two geographically distinct places. Represented on the left is a monastery complex with a Renaissance portal and a Romanesque bell tower, both typical of central Italy, while the high mountains of the background landscape recall those of Northern Italy. In the right background it is possible to glimpse a town that in outline suggests similar localities in Lombardy, around Lago Maggiore, such as the Isole Borromeo, which Gaspar van Wittel had visited, drawn, and knew well. At the centre of the work is a broad expanse of water, perhaps a large river or a lake, while in the left foreground of the painting the rocky landscape of ochre-green colour appears only to have been sketched in, as if left unfinished by the artist.

The present composition relates to a preparatory drawing for part of this Veduta ideata. Within Gaspar van Wittel’s rich graphic corpus there is a preparatory drawing in the Gabinetto dei disegni e delle stampe, Rome, (inv. F. C. 130921) which is only lightly sketched in, and exactly anticipates the left side of the present Ideal view. It represents a mountainous landscape with a monastery on the bank of a river or lake. When G.J. Hoogewerff published the drawing without an illustration in 1915, he described it as follows: ‘Landscape with a monastery on the high bank of a broad river. Background of mountains’ (G. J. Hoogewerff, Disegni di maestri fiamminghi ed olandesi nel Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe in Roma, in: Bollettino d’arte 1915, p. 330, no. 18). In 1966 Giuliano Briganti illustrated this drawing and described it as follows: ‘Ideal view inspired by the Sabine landscape on the banks of the Tiber’ (G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel e l’origine della veduta settecentesca, Roma 1966, p. 333, no. 236d and G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel, new edition, ed. by L. Laureati/L. Trezzani, Milan 1996, pp. 420-421, no. D378). In the present painting the broad foreground expanse of water can be interpreted either as a river in central Italy, such as the Tiber, or more probably as a lake.

Gaspar van Wittel invented the city portrait and specialised in the genre of city view painting. In his ideal views, largely produced from the early years of the eighteenth century onwards, he brought into being another genre: the fantasy view, loosely modelled on the manner of Claude Lorrain. He worked on these with such precision and realistic intent, that he almost created the illusion that his representations of villas, churches, castles, convents and most often ancient temples, were taken from life. Moreover, some of his vedute ideate were most likely inspired by actual landscapes, however these have since changed so much, that they can no longer be identified.

We are grateful to Laura Laureati for her help in cataloguing the present painting.