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Lot Essay
This hitherto unpublished painting can be considered an important addition to Andrea Locatelli's oeuvre. Judging from its large dimensions and the existence of a pendant, whose whereabouts are unknown since the 1925 sale, this exceptional landscape can be compared with Locatelli's most important pairs of paintings rendering the Latium countryside.
The present composition is close in style and quality to the largest paintings by Locatelli, in particular two landscapes of circa 1725-30, which once were possibly pendants: A Landscape in Latium with Shepherds and a ruined Castle in the Civico Museo Borgogna, Vercelli, 124 x 178 cm., and a Landscape in Latium with Shepherds and a Flock in the Colombo collection, Milan, 124 x 174 cm., (see: A. Busiri Vici, Andrea Locatelli e il paesaggio romano del settecento, Rome,1976, nos. 54 and 63). Especially the latter is very close, which Busiri Vici considers as "one of the most beautiful landscapes produced in Rome during the Eighteenth Century and a Locatelli masterpiece, not only for its great dimensions, but particularly for the vast scope of the scene and the superlative quality of brushstroke and inventivity." (op. cit., no. 63).
Andrea Locatelli received his first artistic training in the studio of his father, Giovanni Francesco, in Trastevere, Rome. In 1715, after having worked for three little-known painters - Monsu Alto, Bernadino Fergioni, and Biagio Puccini - Locatelli was commissioned to decorate a room in the Palazzo Ruspoli in Rome, the first of several important decorative schemes that he was to execute. Despite these instances of patronage, it was primarily as a painter of easel pictures that Locatelli made his name. These were sought after not only by distinguished Roman patrons, but also by an international clientele amongst whom he was renowned for his idyllic views of the Campagna.
The present composition is close in style and quality to the largest paintings by Locatelli, in particular two landscapes of circa 1725-30, which once were possibly pendants: A Landscape in Latium with Shepherds and a ruined Castle in the Civico Museo Borgogna, Vercelli, 124 x 178 cm., and a Landscape in Latium with Shepherds and a Flock in the Colombo collection, Milan, 124 x 174 cm., (see: A. Busiri Vici, Andrea Locatelli e il paesaggio romano del settecento, Rome,1976, nos. 54 and 63). Especially the latter is very close, which Busiri Vici considers as "one of the most beautiful landscapes produced in Rome during the Eighteenth Century and a Locatelli masterpiece, not only for its great dimensions, but particularly for the vast scope of the scene and the superlative quality of brushstroke and inventivity." (op. cit., no. 63).
Andrea Locatelli received his first artistic training in the studio of his father, Giovanni Francesco, in Trastevere, Rome. In 1715, after having worked for three little-known painters - Monsu Alto, Bernadino Fergioni, and Biagio Puccini - Locatelli was commissioned to decorate a room in the Palazzo Ruspoli in Rome, the first of several important decorative schemes that he was to execute. Despite these instances of patronage, it was primarily as a painter of easel pictures that Locatelli made his name. These were sought after not only by distinguished Roman patrons, but also by an international clientele amongst whom he was renowned for his idyllic views of the Campagna.