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| LOUIS-GABRIEL BLANCHET (Paris 1705 – 1772 Rome)
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| Portrait of Giovanni Paolo Panini
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Indistinctly signed and dated on the book lower left: L G Blanchet It / 1736
Oil on canvas
38 x 30 in. (96.5 x 76 cm.)
With tracing of an old inscription on the back of the original canvas: ‘Paolo Panini, peintre d’ Architecture/ Orig. [le] Peint par G. Blanchet a Rome’
Provenance: with Arthur Tooth & Sons, London; Sale, Sotheby’s, London, 28 May 1979, lot 69, as Carle van Loo; British Rail Pension Fund collection; Their sale, Sotheby’s, London, 5 July 1998, lot 54.
Exhibited: Twickenham, Marble Hill House, on loan 1985-95; Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, 27 February-21 May 2000 and 17 June- 7 September 2000, p. 328, no. 182, ill.
Literature: F. Arisi, Gian Paolo Panini e i fasti della Roma del ’700, Rome, 1986, ill. in colour as frontispiece, (as Carle van Loo); M. Kiene, Panini. Exposition dossier, Musée du Louvre, 1993, p. 21 (as Carle van Loo).
Blanchet has shown Panini before his easel, leaning on a portfolio, brush in hand. The white cuffs and open collar of his chemise and richly embroidered gold and blue jacket contrast vividly with the brilliant red cloak that flows around the sitter like an antique toga. Blanchet’s usual confident command of light, colour and texture is supremely evident in this portrait of Panini, whom he conveys as a relaxed and elegant gentleman-painter amidst tools of his profession. In this picture Blanchet has managed to transcend the often static genre of the portrait of the artist at his easel and has introduced a surprising vivacity through Panini’s sober expression and critical gaze, the arrangement of his limbs and tilt of his head, and the play of light across his features and dress.
The portrait is the only known painted likeness of the celebrated view painter, apart from the self-portraits that appear in several of Panini’s own paintings. He depicted himself, for example, in Preparations to Celebrate the Birth of the Dauphin of France in 1729 in Piazza Navona, Rome of 1731 (The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin) and in the Interior of the Picture Gallery of Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga of 1749 (Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford). The painting was traditionally attributed to Carle van Loo and recorded as such in much of the recent literature on Panini. However, in 1979, during the relining of the picture, the inscription on the reverse of the original canvas was discovered.
During restoration undertaken in 1982 by Viola Pemberton-Pigott, the cover of the sketchbook on which the artist rests his right hand was found to have been entirely repainted at an early stage in the painting’s history. During removal of this repaint, traces of a signature and date became visible, confirming that an earlier restorer had effaced most of Blanchet’s signature and repainted the passages with a false signature emulating that of van Loo. Removal of the old and discoloured varnish also revealed the brilliance of Blanchet’s palette, notably in the crimson robe and blue coat worn by Panini.
That Panini would have been formally portrayed by one of the leading French painters in eighteenth-century Rome is not surprising – he was associated with the French community in the city from the outset of his career. He was intimately involved in the affairs of the French academy in Rome and for many years taught perspective there. In 1732 he was received as a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris, an honour accorded few Roman artists. Patronized by Cardinal Melchior de Polignac, Louis XV’s ambassador in Rome from 1724 to 1732, the Duc de Choiseul, French ambassador to Benedict XIV, and the Abbé de Canillac, chargé de affaires of the embassy of France to the Holy See in 1724-25 and 1748-49, Panini inevitably made the acquaintance of every important French artist who travelled to Rome, and he greatly influenced younger French painters such as Jean-Nicolas Servandoni, Charles-Louis Clérisseau, Claude-Joseph Vernet, Jean – Honoré Fragonard and Hubert Robert.
These important French contacts notwithstanding, the nature of Panini’s relations, personal and professional, with Blanchet are still not explained; nor are the circumstances of the commissioning of the present portrait, which is presumably a portrait of honour or an official commission from a French source.
(This is an abridged version of the entry by Edgar Peters Bowron that originally appeared in the exhibition catalogue, Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century (see above). We are grateful to the author for allowing us to reproduce it here.)
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P. and D. Colnaghi and Co., Ltd - 15 Old Bond Street London W1S 4AX, United Kingdom Tel: +44-20-7491 7408 Fax: +44-20-7491 8851 contact@colnaghi.co.uk
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