Group of Trees in the Roman Campagna / verso: Vista on the Tor Sapienza, Facing towards the Mountains of Tivoli; Sketches of Buildings

1674 - 1736

Object data

pen and brown ink

height 565 mm × width 433 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on verso: right of centre, in red chalk, N0 2 ; below that, in graphite, Tor Sapiensa / sur la ligne de / Tivoli; right of that, in black chalk, 106 (turned ninety degrees); below that, in graphite, 409 (underlined)
stamped on verso: centre right, with the mark of Fatio (L. 3701); lower right corner, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: none

Condition

foxing throughout; several stains; fold in centre, repairs around the fold; hole in centre; large stain in centre

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; ? by whom sold with group of forty drawings by or attributed to the artist to Gustav Waagen (1794-1868) for the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (disappeared during World War II); …; to the dealer Paul Fatio (L. 3701); his sale, Geneva (N. Rauch), 13 June 1960 sqq., no. 409, CHF 600, to the dealer B. Houthakker;³ from whom, fl. 800, to the museum (L. 2228), 1960

Object number: RP-T-1960-209(R)

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

To judge from the vertical centre fold, this drawing was likely once part of a sketchbook. One side, the present verso, was intended as a preparatory compositional study. On one half of it, a view of the countryside around Tor Sapienza was squared for transfer. The view cannot, however, be found in any of Van Wittel’s (painted) works. Several drawings by Van Wittel are similarly squared with the vertical lines numbered from left to right and include extensive notes. A large group of such drawings is in the collection of the Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele in Rome. These sheets are in a poor state of preservation, demonstrating that they served a critical role in Van Wittel’s working practice.¹⁴

On the other half of the verso of the present sheet, Wittel included a few sketches of (an) unidentified building(s). The recto includes a study of a group of trees. Comparable trees can often be found in the foreground of many of Van Wittels compositions.

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 a large group of 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 1801¹⁵ 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.¹⁶ 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 1959,¹⁷ and a second in 1960, which included two Rijksmuseum drawings and thirty-one other sheets by the artist. Today, drawings from this source can be found in various international collections.¹⁸

Carolyn Mensing, 2021

Literature

G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel e l’origine della veduta settecentesca, Rome 1966, p. 268, n. 4d; G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel, Milan 1996, no. D7

Citation

C. Mensing, 2021, 'Caspar van Wittel, Group of Trees in the Roman Campagna / verso: Vista on the Tor Sapienza, Facing towards the Mountains of Tivoli; Sketches of Buildings, 1674 - 1736', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.64845

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