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Lot Essay
Antonio Joli, who was born in Modena, was the most widely travelled of the Italian view painters of the eighteenth century. These monumental capriccios are exemplary of his work, which was characterised by a graceful touch and lightness of spirit that sustained his outstanding career. At an early age he moved to Rome where he entered the studio of Giovanni Paolo Panini before returning north to Modena and Perugia to work as a scene painter. By 1735 he was in Venice, where he came into contact with Canaletto, before arriving in 1744 in London, where he remained until 1748, painting a series of decorative schemes, such as that for the Richmond home of John James Heidegger, and working for key patrons including Charles, 2nd Duke of Richmond, grandson of King Charles II. After a sojourn in Madrid, he received permission from the Spanish king to return to Italy in 1755, where he settled in Naples under the patronage of Charles VII, later King Charles III of Spain. As the latter’s court painter, it was in Naples that he arguably achieved his greatest success: he not only painted vedute and recorded life at court through his canvases, such as those that show the king’s departure for Spain in 1759, but he also helped to organise royal ceremonies and acted as head scene painter at the San Carlo theatre.
During the 1750s, Naples was a vibrant capital of significant standing and a major destination on the Grand Tour circuit, particularly after the discovery and excavation of the nearby ancient sites of Herculaneum in 1739 and Pompeii a decade later. As the signatures on each picture here attest, these fine capriccios were painted in Naples in 1758, and show Joli arguably at the peak of his power. It was a moment in his career when such monumental decorative works, together with views of Naples and its surrounding countryside, were highly sought after by wealthy visitors to the city. Indeed a closely related pair, in both scale and composition, was formerly in the collection of the Dukes of Buccleuch; those canvases may have been commissioned by Lord Brudenell, Marquess of Monthermer, during his stay in Italy from 1756 to 1760 (R. Toledano, Antonio Joli, Turin, 2006, nos. C.XXV and C.XXVII.1). Toledano (loc. cit.) notes that the capriccio with the baths was a subject staged by Joli’s predecessors Viviano and Niccolò Codazzi, as well as Panini. A composition of a similar type, on a comparable scale, was recorded in the collection of another of Joli’s great patrons, Sir William Hamilton, at the Palazzo Sessa in Naples. A further version, showing a narrower perspective, is in the Reggio di Caserta.
During the 1750s, Naples was a vibrant capital of significant standing and a major destination on the Grand Tour circuit, particularly after the discovery and excavation of the nearby ancient sites of Herculaneum in 1739 and Pompeii a decade later. As the signatures on each picture here attest, these fine capriccios were painted in Naples in 1758, and show Joli arguably at the peak of his power. It was a moment in his career when such monumental decorative works, together with views of Naples and its surrounding countryside, were highly sought after by wealthy visitors to the city. Indeed a closely related pair, in both scale and composition, was formerly in the collection of the Dukes of Buccleuch; those canvases may have been commissioned by Lord Brudenell, Marquess of Monthermer, during his stay in Italy from 1756 to 1760 (R. Toledano, Antonio Joli, Turin, 2006, nos. C.XXV and C.XXVII.1). Toledano (loc. cit.) notes that the capriccio with the baths was a subject staged by Joli’s predecessors Viviano and Niccolò Codazzi, as well as Panini. A composition of a similar type, on a comparable scale, was recorded in the collection of another of Joli’s great patrons, Sir William Hamilton, at the Palazzo Sessa in Naples. A further version, showing a narrower perspective, is in the Reggio di Caserta.