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Lot Essay
This previously unpublished view of the Ponte Sisto has been dated by Doctors Laura Laureati and Ludovica Trezzani to the last decade of the seventeenth century, when Gaspar van Wittel was at the height of his career (written communication, 16 September 2004). By that time, the artist had established himself as one of the leading landscape painters in Rome. He had moved there from his native Netherlands in around 1675, bringing with him a predilection for meticulously detailed renderings of contemporary urban views, in the manner of Jan van der Heyden and Gerrit Berckheyde. His prodigious talent was soon recognised and by the 1690s his Roman vedute were enjoying significant demand, in large part for their faithful, unidealized documentation of the city, which was so distinct from the generic Italianate landscapes of many of his seventeenth-century forebears. Years later, in 1773, Matthew Brettingham would write that: 'the justness in Occhiali's perspective views, and the fine glow of his Flemish colourings, are excellencies perhaps not to be met in the works of any other painter' (van Wittel’s reliance on a pair of spectacles having earned him the soubriquet ‘Gasparo dagli Occhiali’).
Van Wittel’s viewpoint is from the Piazza della Ruaccia, located on the west bank of the Tiber in the rione of Trastevere, overlooking the Tiber. In the foreground at far left, is the little beach of La Renella, which derived its name from the Latin arenula (a grain of sand) and was formed of sediment deposited by the Tiber. It was a popular bathing spot and, in the middle distance, several figures can be seen in various stages of undress, readying themselves for a dip. Direct access to the river was later restricted following the construction of massive concrete walls along the banks of the Tiber in 1880, in an attempt to quell the flooding which had repeatedly devastated the neighbourhoods on either side of the river. Behind the bridge, a low tower marks the beginning of the Farnesina gardens to the south, ringed by a crenelated wall; beyond this is the Vatican, crowned by the dome of Saint Peter’s, and just to the right, the Belvedere. Spanning the Tiber is the Ponte Sisto, which connects Trastevere to the rione of Regola. The bridge was commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV (1414-1484) from the architect Baccio Pontelli, and was constructed on the foundations of a Roman bridge, the Pons Aurelius, which had been destroyed in the early Middle Ages. The skyline at right is pierced by the soaring clock tower of the church of San Francesco d’Assisi, which formed part of the Ospizio Ecclesiastico, later called the ‘casa dei Cento Preti’. A squared-up architectural drawing of the view, missing only the cupola of Saint Peter’s, is in the Biblioteca Nazionale, Rome (L. Laureati, in Gaspar van Wittel: I disegni: La collezione della Biblioteca Nazionale di Roma, exhibition catalogue, Rome, 2013, pp. 120-121, illustrated). It has been dated to circa 1680 and likely served as the artist’s aide-mémoire for his subsequent paintings of the subject.
The Ponte Sisto clearly held a certain fascination for van Wittel, since he painted it on a number of occasions throughout his career. Two other similar-scale paintings of this view survive: one, in the collection of Sir David Ogilvy at Winton Castle, has been dated to the second decade of the eighteenth century (see G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel, L. Laureati and L. Trezzani, eds., Milan, 1996, p. 193, no. 165, illustrated); and a second, formerly in the collection of Charles Pomaret, Aix-en-Provence, and now in a private collection in Rome, which is thought once to have formed part of a series with a view of the Tiber and the Aventine Hill (in the same private collection in Rome), and a view of the Isola Tiberina, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (ibid., pp. 192 and 196, nos. 164, 161 and 181, illustrated). Four further variants of smaller dimensions are known: one is in the Capitoline Museums, Rome, which is part of a series of seven works in tempera, one of which is dated 1682 (ibid., p. 192, no. 162, illustrated); a second, also in tempera and the pendant to a view of the Ponte Rotto, dated 1684, is in a private collection in Rome (ibid., pp. 192 and 195, nos. 163 and 173); a third, in oil, is in a private collection in Rome, and is the pendant to a view of the Castel Sant’Angelo in the same collection, dated 1706 (ibid., pp. 184 and 193, nos. 146 and 166); and a fourth, in tempera on paper and of small dimensions, resurfaced after the publication of the catalogue raisonné in 1996.
Van Wittel’s viewpoint is from the Piazza della Ruaccia, located on the west bank of the Tiber in the rione of Trastevere, overlooking the Tiber. In the foreground at far left, is the little beach of La Renella, which derived its name from the Latin arenula (a grain of sand) and was formed of sediment deposited by the Tiber. It was a popular bathing spot and, in the middle distance, several figures can be seen in various stages of undress, readying themselves for a dip. Direct access to the river was later restricted following the construction of massive concrete walls along the banks of the Tiber in 1880, in an attempt to quell the flooding which had repeatedly devastated the neighbourhoods on either side of the river. Behind the bridge, a low tower marks the beginning of the Farnesina gardens to the south, ringed by a crenelated wall; beyond this is the Vatican, crowned by the dome of Saint Peter’s, and just to the right, the Belvedere. Spanning the Tiber is the Ponte Sisto, which connects Trastevere to the rione of Regola. The bridge was commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV (1414-1484) from the architect Baccio Pontelli, and was constructed on the foundations of a Roman bridge, the Pons Aurelius, which had been destroyed in the early Middle Ages. The skyline at right is pierced by the soaring clock tower of the church of San Francesco d’Assisi, which formed part of the Ospizio Ecclesiastico, later called the ‘casa dei Cento Preti’. A squared-up architectural drawing of the view, missing only the cupola of Saint Peter’s, is in the Biblioteca Nazionale, Rome (L. Laureati, in Gaspar van Wittel: I disegni: La collezione della Biblioteca Nazionale di Roma, exhibition catalogue, Rome, 2013, pp. 120-121, illustrated). It has been dated to circa 1680 and likely served as the artist’s aide-mémoire for his subsequent paintings of the subject.
The Ponte Sisto clearly held a certain fascination for van Wittel, since he painted it on a number of occasions throughout his career. Two other similar-scale paintings of this view survive: one, in the collection of Sir David Ogilvy at Winton Castle, has been dated to the second decade of the eighteenth century (see G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel, L. Laureati and L. Trezzani, eds., Milan, 1996, p. 193, no. 165, illustrated); and a second, formerly in the collection of Charles Pomaret, Aix-en-Provence, and now in a private collection in Rome, which is thought once to have formed part of a series with a view of the Tiber and the Aventine Hill (in the same private collection in Rome), and a view of the Isola Tiberina, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (ibid., pp. 192 and 196, nos. 164, 161 and 181, illustrated). Four further variants of smaller dimensions are known: one is in the Capitoline Museums, Rome, which is part of a series of seven works in tempera, one of which is dated 1682 (ibid., p. 192, no. 162, illustrated); a second, also in tempera and the pendant to a view of the Ponte Rotto, dated 1684, is in a private collection in Rome (ibid., pp. 192 and 195, nos. 163 and 173); a third, in oil, is in a private collection in Rome, and is the pendant to a view of the Castel Sant’Angelo in the same collection, dated 1706 (ibid., pp. 184 and 193, nos. 146 and 166); and a fourth, in tempera on paper and of small dimensions, resurfaced after the publication of the catalogue raisonné in 1996.