Lot Essay
Professor Thomas J. McCormick, loc. cit., discusses the attribution of the present picture, noting that it resembles the work of Panini but with greater contrasts of light and dark. He goes on to say that although Clérisseau is believed to have collaborated with Panini in oils, none have been positively identified. Marianne Roland-Michel, who has only seen a photograph, has published the present picture as attributed to Servandoni.
Servandoni was born in Florence and was a pupil of Panini in Rome. After a stay in England, he arrived in Paris in 1724, and from 1726 he began a career as a decorator for the opera.
The present picture is stylistically very similar to two works by Servandoni: one, in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, was the artist's morceau de réception for the Academie in 1731; the other, which is signed, is in a private collection, Paris (M. Roland-Michel, catalogue of the exhibition, Piranèse et les Français 1740-1790, Villa Medici, Rome, Palais des Etats de Bourgogne, Dijon and Hôtel de Sully, Paris, May-Nov. 1976, pp. 330-4, nos. 126-7, illustrated).
Servandoni was born in Florence and was a pupil of Panini in Rome. After a stay in England, he arrived in Paris in 1724, and from 1726 he began a career as a decorator for the opera.
The present picture is stylistically very similar to two works by Servandoni: one, in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, was the artist's morceau de réception for the Academie in 1731; the other, which is signed, is in a private collection, Paris (M. Roland-Michel, catalogue of the exhibition, Piranèse et les Français 1740-1790, Villa Medici, Rome, Palais des Etats de Bourgogne, Dijon and Hôtel de Sully, Paris, May-Nov. 1976, pp. 330-4, nos. 126-7, illustrated).