Hendrik Frans van Lint, called Lo Studio

Anonymous sale, Paris, Castor-Hara, 19 December 2011, lot 72;

Acquired subsequently by the present owner.

Hendrik Frans van Lint was one of the most accomplished and sought-after landscape painters working in Rome in the first half of the 18th century. A native of Antwerp, he moved to the Eternal City circa 1710, where he soon earned himself the nickname ‘Lo Studio’, due to the painstaking precision with which he rendered both figures and architecture, and he is often seen to sign with this name, as here. 

Painted in Rome at the height of the artist's career, this expansive view depicts one of the principal entrances to the Eternal City as it would have appeared to travelers arriving from the north. Van Lint offers the viewer a sweeping perspective of the unpaved piazza in minute and vibrant detail. Not only is this view among the most celebrated depictions of one of the city’s grandest public spaces, but also it offers a valuable visual record of Rome’s architecture at the beginning of the eighteenth century, prior to Giuseppe Valadier’s radical renovations.

There are two other known autograph variants of this view, both larger in size, respectively in a private collection, Piacenza,¹ and a work sold at Replica Shoes 's, New York, on 28 January 2016 for $262,000.²

¹ A. Busiri Vici, Peter, Hendrik e Giacomo Van Lint: Tre pittori di Anversa del '600 e '700 lavorano a Roma, Rome 1987, p. 65, no. 46, reproduced.

² 'The Road to Rome: Property from a Distinguished Italian Private Collection', New York, Replica Shoes 's, 28 January 2016, lot 316; https://fashionluxury.com.cn/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2016/road-to-rome-property-distinguished-italian-private-collection-part-i-n09462/lot.316.html