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Property of a Private Collector (Lots 28-32)The following five drawings come from two albums assembled in the 19th Century. 97 drawings were pasted onto separate sheets and bound into two folio volumes labelled ‘Drawings/ of Rome and its Environ/ by/ Labruzzi’. 39 sheets from these albums were exhibited in London at the Simon C. Dickinson gallery in 2012, including the first four of the sheets now offered. Although the majority of the drawings were views of Rome and its outskirts, as the label stated, these sheets, like some others from the album, were made in Naples and in Le Marche (especially around Ancona). Apart from that of Lake Nemi, the vedute are in monochrome, like the later Vatican series on the Via Appia, which suggests that this technique was favoured for views of topographical precision. None of the drawings in the exhibition were dated or associated with dated drawings or paintings. Since Labruzzi’s handling here is unlike his much later drawings in the Vatican or the British Museum, Timothy Clifford, in his introduction to the Dickinson catalogue, suggested dating the albums to the late 1760s or early 1770s (see Provenance).Of Labruzzi’s many admirers among the Grand Tourists, Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758-1838), historian and antiquarian, stands out as his most prominent patron. Hoare engaged the artist as his travelling companion when setting out on his journey along the Appian Way, which Labruzzi documented with 226 drawings between 1789 and 1794 (P. A. de Rosa, La via Appia nei disegni di Carlo Labruzzi alla biblioteca apostolica vaticana, Rome, 2013). The first exhibition of Labruzzi’s works was organised by the John Manning gallery in London in 1960, when an album of 100 drawings by the artist was broken up and sold at the gallery – the drawings, all of which were sold, entered distinguished collections such as those of Paul Oppé, Leonard Duke and Major Michael Ingram, with others going to the Victoria and Albert Museum such as the Ruins near Castel Gandolfo watercolour (inv. P.16-1960).

CARLO LABRUZZI (ROME 1748-1810 PERUGIA)

The so-called Temple of Venus at Baiae, with tourists preparing to disembark and fishermen mending nets

Details

CARLO LABRUZZI (ROME 1748-1810 PERUGIA)
The so-called Temple of Venus at Baiae, with tourists preparing to disembark and fishermen mending nets

black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash
36 x 50 cm (14 1⁄4 x 19 3⁄4 in.)

Provenance

with Simon C. Dickinson Ltd., London (Carlo Labruzzi, The Grand Tour, 2012, no. 39, ill., catalogue by Timothy Clifford).

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This lot is offered without reserve.

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Lot Essay

The ‘Temple of Venus’ in Baiae, west of Naples on the Gulf of Pozzuoli, dates from the second century A. D., and was part of the Emperor Hadrian's palace.

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