An architectural capriccio with Christ at the Pool of Bethesda

Details

Giovanni Paolo Panini (Piacenza 1691-1765 Rome)
An architectural capriccio with Christ at the Pool of Bethesda
oil on canvas
38 7/8 x 53½ in. (98.7 x 135.9 cm.)

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Lepke, Berlin, 12 October 1908, lot 27, as signed.
Collection Fürstenberg, château de Beaumesnil, from whom confiscated by the ERR at Beaumesnil, and acquired by The German Reich, for the planned Führermuseum, Linz, on 8 February 1941 (inv. 1497).
Transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point by Western Allied Forces (Mü. 4970) and restituted to France on 27 March 1946.
with Chaucer Fine Arts, London, 1983, from whom acquired by the present owner.

Literature

F. Arisi, Gian Paolo Panini, Piacenza, 1961, p. 136, under no. 71, as untraceable.
F. Arisi, Gian Paolo Panini e i fasti della Roma del'700, Rome, 1986, p. 270, no. 98, illustrated.

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Clemency Henty

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Lot Essay

Ferdinando Arisi dated the present work to 1720-24, considering it the earliest of Panini's various treatments of this subject and 'un lavoro di grande impegno'. Other versions of the subject include the large upright canvas dated 1737, painted as part of a series for Philip V of Spain (Segovia, San Ildefonso; Arisi, loc. cit., no. 243), and a composition that is fairly closely related to this one, which has been dated circa 1727 (Munich, Alte Pinakothek; Arisi, loc. cit., no. 172).
We are grateful to Professor David Marshall for confirming the attribution of this painting, declaring it 'one of the best of this phase of his [Panini's] career'.

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