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artist or maker

Panini, Giovanni Paolo (b.1691, d.1765)

Date

1751

commissioned in 1751

Place of production

Rome, Italy

Medium

oil on canvas

Type of object

paintings

Accession number

80.2007.1

Large oil painting of a concert given by the Duc de Nivernais in 1751 in the Salone of the Palazzo Farnese, Rome. The large room is illuminated with torches and lamps; there are mirrors and tapestries on the walls. On the stage there are three men and two women, impersonating mythological gods. Above are five young women seated on clouds representing symbols of Virtues. On the left is Peace with an olive branch, Vesta - domestic faithfulness, who tends the fire; in the centre, Regal Authority, crowned and dressed in blue of the French crown; towards the right, Justice, with scales and fasces, then Abundance with a fruit cornucopia. A semi-circular colonnade appears behind with a glory above and putti flying on clouds below. An orchestra appears around them on the stage. The audience, mainly cardinals, appears in the foreground. Balconies decorated with French heraldic devices have women. People chat in the audience.

In 1751, Panini made two paintings depicting the celebrations given by the French Ambassador to Rome, the duc de Nivernais, to mark the birth of a new heir to the French throne, Louis-Joseph-Xavier, duc de Bourgogne, eldest son of the Dauphin of France and grandson to Louis XV (see also acc. no. 80.2007.2). The paintings depict the evening climax of an elaborate fête that encompassed religious thanksgiving and elaborate partying. Together Panini’s canvases depict the performance of a two-act drama set to music and the ball that followed.

Commentary

Both events were staged at the Palazzo Farnese, Rome, also the French embassy. In the 17th century, Agostino and Annibale Carracci (1557-1602 and 1560-1609) had famously decorated many of the principal rooms in the palace, but they never fulfilled their plans to paint the Grand Salone on the main floor. In the 18th century, this space was frequently transformed with ephemeral decorations for entertainments. Panini and his son Giuseppe contributed to the design of the Grand Salone for the duc's concert and ball.

Beyond the patron’s need for a commemoration of the occasion, Panini must have been motivated by a desire to record his splendid embellishments. Each painting shows all the bays of the room. The artist adopted an ideal viewpoint, impossibly outside the room, in order to fit everything in. Panini based some of the hundreds of figures with which he filled this vast space upon drawings he had made several years earlier for another project. A sketchbook in the British Museum contains studies he re-used for some of the figures (no. 1858,0626.655). In each of the paintings there is a tension between the overarching perspectival illusion and the mass of detail and individuals. These details interrupt our view towards the central focus of the composition.

In the “Concert” the mysterious space between the singers dressed as gods, and the larger-scale painted gods above them, provides a central vanishing point. However, our eye is encouraged to range back and forth across the space in front. The swirls of the French carpet, the specifics of the wall decoration, the silver chandeliers and the network of glances that ricochet around the audience call for our attention. The Roman cardinals are seated in the front row, their skullcaps represented by little red circles within circles of hair.

In Britain, Panini is more familiar as a painter of Roman views for Grand Tourists and fantastical arrangements of antiquities. At Waddesdon for instance, four of Panini's so-called “capricci” were sources for the architectural scenes on the Beaumarchais desk in the Baron’s Sitting Room at Waddesdon (acc. no. 2474). This pair of paintings are magnificent examples of another genre Panini made his own: the depiction of court and civic festivities. He adopted this genre from print culture and elevated it into grand oil paintings that retain all the bustle, glitter and modernity of the more ephemeral format.

These paintings also reflect Panini's important role in the creation of France’s image abroad. His brother-in-law Nicolas Vleughels (1668-1737), Director of the French Academy in Rome, probably first brought him to the attention of the French enclave there. Before he made these works, Panini had depicted the preparations for the French celebration in the Piazza Navona to mark the birth of Dauphin in 1729 (Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. 415) and a performance in the Teatro Argentina in 1747, in honour of the marriage of the Dauphin and Marie-Josèphe de Saxe (Louvre, inv. 414). The Dauphin and his wife were the parents of the baby whose birth is celebrated in the Waddesdon paintings. Had the little duc de Bourgogne lived, he would have succeeded his grandfather as King of France. However, he died when he was 10 and his younger brother became Louis XVI.

Juliet Carey, 2008

Physical description

Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)

1150 x 1193

Signature & date

not signed or dated

History

Provenance

Commissioned by Louis-Jules Mancini Mazarini, duc de Nivernais (1716-98) in 1751; by descent to his daughter duchesse de Brissac, Adélaïde Mancini Mazarini (b.1742, d.1808); by descent to her daughter duchesse de Montemart, Adélaïde Pauline Rosalie de Cossé (b.1765, d.1820); by descent through the Dukes of Montemart family; acquired by a Rothschild Family Trust in 2007.

Collection

Waddesdon (Rothschild Foundation)
On loan since 2007

Bibliography

Ferdinando Arisi, Due inediti di straordinario interesse di Gian Paolo Panini, commissionati dall'Ambasciatore francese a Roma nel 1751, Strenna Piacentina, 2005, 113-118; figs 74-75
♦; Juliet Carey, New Paintings at Waddesdon Manor, Apollo, 168, September 2008, 52-57; pp. 52-55, ill.
♦; Peter Kerber; Eyewitness Views; Eyewitness Views: Making History in Eighteenth-Century Europe, J. Paul Getty Museum from 9th May 2017 to 30th July 2017.; Italy; Getty Publications; 2017; pp. 114-115

Other details

Subject person

Louis-Jules, duc de Nivernais Mancini Mazarini, Alluded to in image
Louis Joseph Xavier de France, Duke of Burgundy, Alluded to in image

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