Scuola Romana (XVIII) - Capriccio architettonico con figure - NO RESERVE

Capriccio Romano with Ruins and Wayfarers on the Lake - Roman School of the 18th Century - Oil on Canvas, mounted on panel.

The decorative painting proposed here captures a Roman capriccio of the eighteenth-century school, in the erudite tradition of Panini and Robert, tied to the taste of the Grand Tour.
The scene opens with great theatricality: on the left, the imposing ruin of a Corinthian temple, two fluted columns with a rough, dusty, warm material to the touch, support a broken frieze drenched in light. A monumental backcloth that expertly introduces the observer’s gaze toward the infinite with perspective.
On the terrace, animated by a warm honeyed light, three wayfarers stand, painted with swift, darting brushwork: a lady with a gentle face and a velvet-like pearlescent gown, a gentleman in a jacket of golden ochre who points to the horizon, a boy with a delightful dog at his feet. Beside them, a polished stone pedestal topped by a togate statue and a slender tree with a feathery, rustling crown corroborate the memory of a glorious past.
Beyond, a view unfolds of pure atmospheric poetry: a lake of glassy, translucent, trembling waters that reflect a vast sky, opaline and pearlescent, veiled with pinkish clouds. In the background, mountains recede in shades of slate blue and indigo, dissolving into the quiet, humid air.
The qualitative painterly execution appears with a thick brush in the architectures and delightfully veiled in the sky and the waters.
The harmonious palette, typically eighteenth-century, plays with ochre, Siena earths, Cerulean blues, and sage greens.

The painting comes from a private French collection.
It has been applied to an old panel.

Alongside the work is a patinated and more recent frame, in homage.

Painting dimensions: 47 cm x 33 cm
Overall dimensions: 56 cm x 42 cm.