ViIVIANO CODAZZI and ADRIAEN VAN DER CABEL
Valvassina, Bergamo, 1603 circa – Roma, 1670 / Rijswijk, 1631 – Lione, 1705
Architectural caprice with marina
oil on canvas, cm 47×66
Collaborations between artists specialized in different ‘genres’ – such as flower painters and figure painters, figure painters and landscapists, or even all of these working alongside quadratura painters – were not uncommon in the 17th century, particularly for the execution of demanding illusionistic ceiling paintings in palazzos and churches.
In the case of this fascinating oval, according to Giancarlo Sestieri author of a study on our painting, the work is the result of a collaboration between the Dutch painter Adriaen van der Cabel, who arrived in Rome in 1659 after his apprenticeship with van Goyen in The Hague, and the Bergamasque Viviano Codazzi, who had received his training in the circle of Agostino Tassi in Rome, and returned definitely to the city in 1647 after a long sojourn in Naples. According to Sestieri, it is to Codazzi that we owe the “architectonic introduction, conceived as a theatrical scenery” of the proscenium, imagined as an airy series of partially ruined antique-style arches within which several figures move – particularly striking is the figure dressed in black at the centre, standing out forcefully in silhouette – while the Dutch painter executed the seascape in the background, enlivened by ships moored in the calm harbour. The collaboration between the two artists, already investigated in previous years, has been further explored by Sestieri, who in his recent study published our painting alongside other results of this interesting artistic partnership.
PUBLICATIONS
“Il capriccio architettonico in Italia nel XVII e XVIII secolo”, edited by Giancarlo Sestieri, Etgraphiae, Foligno, 2015, vol. I, p. 366, fig. 121 and 129.