Lot Essay
A hitherto unrecorded version of a much smaller picture in the National Gallery in Prague (F. Arisi, Gian Paolo Panini e i fasti della Roma del '700, Rome, 1986, pp.478-9, no.504, illustrated), with largely different figures and clouds and the arch seen at a slightly different angle. While that painting's pendant, signed and dated 1764 (ibid., no.503, illustrated), is a replica of a much earlier painting at Providence, Rhode Island (ibid., p.426, no.390), no earlier version of the present view was known to Arisi, who points out that in its reminiscences of Vanvitelli it looks back to works of Panini's youth