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Lot Essay
Johannes Lingelbach was born in Frankfurt but trained in Amsterdam, where his family had settled by 1634. Following a visit to France in 1642, he was in Rome from 1644 to May 1655, joining the second generation of Bamboccianti painters but never becoming a member of the Schildersbent. Lingelbach was unique among his fellow Dutch Italianates in that he signed and dated many of his paintings, an invaluable tool in the documentation of his artistic development. He appropriated the images of Roman trades from Pieter van Laer, as is evident in this picture and others of a similar type. Lingelbach's portrait was painted by Michiel Sweerts, which is known only from a print engraved by B. Vaillant.
The present work is a contemporary genre scene set in one of Rome's principal meeting places, the Piazza del Popolo. The church of Santa Maria del Popolo, with its conspicuous dome and campanile, is placed next to the Porta Flaminia or Porta del Popolo. The porch is represented as it appeared before 1655, after which Bernini modernized its appearance in honor of Queen Christina of Sweden's entry into the city. The foreground, however, is more fanciful. Giacomo della Porta's fountain, which in those days stood behind an obelisk (omitted in this picture), has been transformed into Bernini's Fontana del Tritone of 1640, then and now in the Piazza Barberini. The temple ruin is also a free quotation from the Temple of Saturn in the Forum. The structure at the top of the hill, which strangely anticipates a somewhat similar building erected in this spot by Valadier when he remodelled the square in the early nineteenth century, may have been inspired by the Arch of Constantine, while the balustrade recalls that in front of Santissima Trinità dei Monti, erected during the pontificate of Pope Sixtus V.
Lingelbach's compositions grouped buildings and figures in pleasing and evocatively decorative ensembles much like a theatrical stage. Lingelbach's personal impressions of Rome were preferred by northern collectors to faithful topographical views, a genre that would become popular later in the century in the hands of another northern painter active in Rome, Gaspar van Wittel.
The present work is a contemporary genre scene set in one of Rome's principal meeting places, the Piazza del Popolo. The church of Santa Maria del Popolo, with its conspicuous dome and campanile, is placed next to the Porta Flaminia or Porta del Popolo. The porch is represented as it appeared before 1655, after which Bernini modernized its appearance in honor of Queen Christina of Sweden's entry into the city. The foreground, however, is more fanciful. Giacomo della Porta's fountain, which in those days stood behind an obelisk (omitted in this picture), has been transformed into Bernini's Fontana del Tritone of 1640, then and now in the Piazza Barberini. The temple ruin is also a free quotation from the Temple of Saturn in the Forum. The structure at the top of the hill, which strangely anticipates a somewhat similar building erected in this spot by Valadier when he remodelled the square in the early nineteenth century, may have been inspired by the Arch of Constantine, while the balustrade recalls that in front of Santissima Trinità dei Monti, erected during the pontificate of Pope Sixtus V.
Lingelbach's compositions grouped buildings and figures in pleasing and evocatively decorative ensembles much like a theatrical stage. Lingelbach's personal impressions of Rome were preferred by northern collectors to faithful topographical views, a genre that would become popular later in the century in the hands of another northern painter active in Rome, Gaspar van Wittel.