Capriccio with a Roman Arch
Capriccio with a Roman Arch
- Artist
- Bernardo Bellotto
- Artist Dates
- 1722-1780
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- Capriccio with a Roman Arch
- Date
- c. 1745
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 58.4 x 91.4 cm (23 x 36 in)
- K Number
- K1589
- Repository
- Columbia Museum of Art
- Accession Number
- CMA 1962.22
- Notes
Provenance
Anonymous Collection, England. (Sold, Galerie Caspari, Munich, 1930, no. 6). (Jacob M. Heimann [b. 1891], New York). (Paul Drey, New York) in 1938; [1] sold to Samuel H. Kress [1863-1955] in 1948; gift to the Columbia Museum of Art in 1961, no. CMA 1961.22. [1] Lent to Venetian Painting from the Fifteenth Century through the Eighteenth, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 25 June - 24 July 1938, no. 12.
Catalogue Entry
Bernardo Bellotto
Capriccio with a Roman Arch
K1589
Columbia, S.C., Columbia Museum of Art (62-931), since 1962.(1) Canvas. 23 x 36 in. (58.4 x 91.4 cm.). Good condition. The scene, with cypresses and ruins of a Roman arch, is undoubtedly Italian, and if by Bellotto, or even by an associate of his, K1589 probably dates before he left Italy, in 1747. The title sometimes used, Landscape near Verona,(2) finds some support in a comparison of certain aspects of the composition with Bellotto's pair of Verona views in the Gemaldegalerie, Dresden (nos. 604 and 605).(3) For example, in the first of the Dresden pictures there are several of the characteristic floating mills like the one near the foreground in K1589, and in the second there is a view of the Ponte delle Navi over the Adige which resembles the bridge in K1589, with its towered structures over the middle pier. Provenance: English Private Collection. Sold, Caspari's, Munich, 1930, no. 6 of catalogue, reproduced.(4) J. M. Heimann, New York. Paul Drey's, New York –exhibited: 'Venetian Painting from the Fifteenth Century through the Eighteenth,' California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, June 25-July 24, 1938, no. 12 of catalogue, as Landscape near Verona, by Bellotto; Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., 1940. Kress acquisition, 1948 –exhibited: 'Twenty-five Paintings from the Collection of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation,' University of Arizona, Tucson, 1951-57, no. 23 of catalogue by W. E. Suida, as Bellotto; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Tex., 1958-61.
References
(1) Catalogue by A. Contini Bonacossi, 1962, pp. 107 f., as Bellotto. (2) This is the title under which K1589 was acquired for the Kress Collection. Even as a view of Verona it is probably somewhat imaginary. (3) The two large Dresden paintings are reproduced in color by R. Pallucchini, Vedute del Bellotto, 1961, pls. IX and X. (4) I have not been able to check the Caspari catalogue.