The Triumph of Apollo

A study for Giani's painted stage-curtain for the Apollo di Tor di Nona Theater, Rome, a project dated by Anna Ottani Cavina to the second decade of the 19th Century on stylistic grounds (A. Ottani Cavina, op. cit., II, p. 657). A study in tempera for the project, which closely follows the composition of the present drawing, is in the Accademia di San Luca, Rome (A. Ottani Cavina, op. cit., no. D44), while a drawing in pen and ink which may be an early idea for the composition is in the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York (A. Ottani Cavina, op. cit., no. A1.357).
The curtain remained in use well into the middle of the century, while the theater itself was demolished in 1899 to make way for the channelling of the Tiber.