Sketches of Anzio, a Fountain and a Boat / recto: Panorama of the Bay and Cities of Anzio and Nettuno

Anzio, c. 1674 - c. 1736

Object data

pen and brown ink, with grey wash, over traces of graphite

height 280 mm (four sheets joined together) × width 1225 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed: upper left, in graphite, 392; lower centre, in graphite, Fontaine de Innocenzo XII / a Anzio près de Roma / construite par l’architecte du pape / Fontana _ […]; lower right corner, in red chalk, _N0 29; below that, in graphite, Anzio e Nettuno; above that, in graphite, 9 (?); below that, in graphite, 61
inscribed on recto: lower centre, in graphite, Fontaine de Fontana a Anzio
stamped on recto: lower right corner, with the mark of with the mark of Fatio (L. 3701)
stamped: lower right corner, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: Strasbourg lily within a double circle

Condition

Four sheets pasted together; smudges around the edges; brown stains and sports throughout

Provenance

…; collection Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (1716-1799), Rome;¹ by whom bequeathed to the Accademia di S. Luca, Rome (later dispersed), 1799; from which acquired en bloc with all other drawings dispersed from the academy’s collection by Vincenzo Pacetti (1746-1820), Rome, 1801;² his son, Michelangelo Pacetti (1793-after 1855), Rome and Naples; ? with group of forty drawings by or attributed to the artist sold by him to Gustav Waagen (1794-1868) for the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (disappeared during World War II); …; to the dealer Paul Fatio (L. 3701), Geneva, mid-1950s; his sale, Geneva (N. Rauch), 13 June 1960 sqq., no. 392, to the dealer B. Houthakker;³ from whom, fl. 1200, to the museum (L. 2228), 1960

Object number: RP-T-1960-208(V)

The artist

Caspar van Wittel (Amersfoort, ca. 1653 – Rome, 1736)

He was probably born in Utrecht or Amersfoort to Adriaen Jaspersz Van Wietel (?-?), who was a cartwright, and Mayken Cornelisdr Copiers (?-?).⁴ His initial training was with portrait painter Thomas van Veenendaell (c. 1628-after 1673). He joined the workshop of Matthias Withoos (1627-1703) a few years later.⁵ At the end of 1674 Van Wittel moved to Rome, where he was recorded at the local guild of Netherlandish artists, the Schildersbent, on 3 January 1675. His Bent-name was ‘Piktoorts’ (Pitch-torch), but his more commonly used Italian name was ‘Vanvitelli’ or ‘Gasparo dagli Occhiali’, a reference to the spectacles that he had to wear due to his cataracts.⁶ In his initial years in Rome, he worked as the assistant of hydraulic engineer Cornelis Meyer (1629-1701), illustrating Meyer’s plans to restore navigability to the River Tiber between Rome and Perugia. They also produced several printed views of Rome and its environs.⁷ Van Wittel spent the remainder of his life in Rome, but made several trips throughout Italy and a short trip to the Netherlands in 1685.⁸ The majority of his drawn and painted oeuvre depicts Rome and the surrounding campagna.

Van Wittel is considered to be one of the principal painters of topographical views in Italy known as vedute: realistic (panoramic) landscape or town views that are largely topographical in conception. He was renowned for his careful and detailed observations of the individual elements that appear in such works, be they natural or architectural details. He probably made use of a camera obscura to help with perspective. Inspired by his Dutch predecessors, he employed bright colours, for instance to render clear blue skies, and avoided heavy shadows, a novelty in Italy. Several of his paintings are drenched in late-afternoon sunlight reflected from the white façades of local Roman villas and palaces. This technique was certainly inspired by Claude Lorrain (1600-1682), another foreigner active in Italy.⁹ While many of Van Wittel’s predecessors were attracted by the Classical architectural ruins found in and around Rome, Van Wittel documented the modern city in its present-day form and rarely depicted its ancient monuments and religious sites.¹⁰

Drawings were a crucial part of Van Wittel’s working method, and he often used a single drawing for several painted compositions. Many of his drawings were apparently part of sketchbooks with which he usually travelled, which were later taken apart. His in situ sketches are in black or red chalk and were later finished in his studio with ink and washes. Several of his larger sheets include (colour) notations and were squared for transfer. A large group of these preparatory sheets is now in the collection of the Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele in Rome.¹¹ He also drew imaginary views partly based on actual sites, which are almost exclusively finished works in pen and wash. Several are signed. They were likely made for specific clients; at the height of his career, Van Wittel was unable to meet the large demand for his paintings and instead sold drawings to his clientele.¹²

On 18 February 1697, Van Wittel married Anne Lorenzani (1669-1736). The couple had six children, three of whom reached adulthood: Luigi Vanvitelli (1700-1773), who became a famous architect and sculptor, Urbano Vanvitelli (1702-1770) and Petronilla Vanvitelli (1710-1766). Caspar van Wittel passed away on 13 September 1736; his wife followed in December of the same year. They were buried in Santa Maria in Vallicelli, Rome.¹³

Carolyn Mensing, 2021

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, II (1719), p. 360, III (1721), p. 103; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 897; C. Lorenzetti, Gaspare Vanvitelli, Milan 1934; G. Briganti, ‘Gaspar van Wittel (Vanvitelli), schilder van Amersfoort’, Mededeelingen van het Nederlandsch Historisch Instituut te Rome 22 (1943), pp. 119-33; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXXVI (1947), pp. 130-31; G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel e l’origine della veduta settecentesca, Rome 1966; A. Zwollo, Hollandse en Vlaamse veduteschilders te Rome, 1675-1725, Assen 1973; M.W. Heijenga-Klomp, ‘Jacob van Staverden en Caspar van Wittel. Twee schilders van Amersfoort te Rome’, Flehite 21 (1991) nos. 3-4, pp. 34-42; M.W. Heijenga-Klomp, ‘Caspar van Wittel. Zijn ouders en jeugdjaren’, Flehite 21 (1991), no. 3-4, pp. 42-49; G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel, Milan 1996; L. Trezzani, ‘Caspar van Wittel’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, vol. XXXIII, pp. 268-70; M.W. Heijenga-Klomp, ‘Jasper van Wittel (ca. 1652-1736). Een Amersfoortse schilder in Italië’, Flehite, Historisch Jaarboek voor Amersfoort en omstreken (2005), pp. 132-47; R. Landsman, ‘Caspar van Wittel’s Family Ties’, Oud Holland 131 (2018), no. 3-4, pp. 139-50

Entry

The recto of this large drawing, made on four separate sheets pasted together, is likely a preparatory drawing for a panoramic view of the city of Anzio. However, no related painting is known. According to Briganti, the drawing has some elements in common with an imaginary painted view that was evidently inspired by the port of Anzio, last seen with a dealer in Rome.¹⁴

Anzio, about fifty kilometers from Rome, was built on the ancient city of Antium, the capital of the Volsci people, which eventually fell into the hands of the Romans. In Roman times, Antium became an all-season getaway resort where many wealthy citizens owned villas.¹⁵ After it was almost completely deserted in the Middle Ages, Anzio was rebuilt in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The port was designed by Carlo Fontana (1634/38-1714) under Pope Innocent XII (1615-1700). After this large campaign was finished around 1700, the Roman aristocracy found its way back to the city.

As seen on the recto of the present sheet, several villas were newly built around the time that Van Wittel visited the area. Halfway between Anzio and Nettuno – drawn in the centre background – is the Villa di Bell’Aspetto (today the Villa Borghese di Nettuno). The villa on the left could not be identified.¹⁶ It is possible that the recto drawing is unfinished, since several elements are worked out solely with pencil, such as the boats in the harbour and the grazing cows in the lower left foreground. Moreover, the application of washes is sparing.

On the verso, Van Wittel drew in greater detail several individual elements found in and around Anzio. From left to right we see a quick sketch in pen of the harbor’s fortification, a boat in graphite, a fountain designed by the ‘architect of the Pope’ (Fontaine de Innocenzo XII a Anzio près de Roma construite par l’architecte du pape), in all likelihood Carlo Fontana, and what appears to be a section of some of the remains of the Roman villas dating from the first century AD when the ancient city was flourishing.

The present sheet and inv. no RP-T-1960-208(R) were in the collection of Roman sculptor Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (c. 1716-1799), who owned several preparatory sheets by Van Wittel, which he might have acquired directly from the artist or the artist’s son, Luigi Vanvitelli (1700-1773), a fellow sculptor in Rome. Cavaceppi bequeathed his entire estate, which included thousands of drawings, to the Accademia di S. Luca, Rome. When his will was almost immediately subverted and the bequest was dispersed, a huge scandal and years of litigation ensued, especially after all the drawings were acquired in 1801 (or 1805) by another sculptor, Vincenzo Pacetti (1746-1820). He was accused of serious impropriety since he not only had been an executor of Cavaceppi’s estate but was president of the Accademia. Pacetti’s son Michelangelo Pacetti (1793-after 1855) later sold a group of forty drawings by or attributed to Van Wittel from these holdings to Gustav Waagen for the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett, but most disappeared during World War II.¹⁷ Eventually a large group came into the possession of the Swiss dealer Paul Fatio, who began selling them privately in the mid-1950s. Fatio offered them in two auctions organized in Geneva by N. Rauch, one in 1959,¹⁸ and a second in 1960, which included both Rijksmuseum drawings and thirty-one other sheets by the artist. Today, drawings from this source can be found in various international collections.¹⁹

Carolyn Mensing, 2021

Literature

G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel e l’origine della veduta settecentesca, Rome 1966, p. 258, n. 3d; A. Zwollo, Hollandse en Vlaamse veduteschilders te Rome, 1675-1725, Assen 1973, pp. 155-56, fig. 194 (recto only); G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel, Milan 1996, no. D6

Citation

C. Mensing, 2021, 'Caspar van Wittel, Sketches of Anzio, a Fountain and a Boat / recto: Panorama of the Bay and Cities of Anzio and Nettuno, Anzio, c. 1674 - c. 1736', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200146468

(accessed 12 December 2025 20:30:30).