St. Peter’s Square, Rome

Artist Giovanni Paolo Panini (Italian, 1691-1765)

Place of OriginRome, Italy

Date1741

DimensionsH: 38 3/4 in. (98.4 cm); W: 53 1/2 in. (135.9 cm)

MediumOil on canvas.

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1971.157

Not on View

Label TextThis expansive view of the façade and dome of St. Peter’s cathedral in Rome, flanked by the colonnades designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), is one of only a few known exterior views of the church by painter Giovanni Paolo Panini. Panini has embellished the space with imaginary ruins in the foreground and with lots of anecdotal details. Panini was the leading painter in Rome of city views, or vedute, during the first half of the 1700s.Published ReferencesToledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, pp. 120, 123, pl. 27.

Hussey, C., Late Georgian Country Houses, 1800-1840, London, 1959, p. 94, fig. 171 (provenance incorrect).

"For the Record," Art Gallery, vol. 18, no. 9, June 1975, p. 11, repr. p. 10.

"Treasures for Toledo," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 19, nos. 2 and 3, 1976, p. 69, repr.

Bowron, Edgar Peters, "A View of the Piazza del Popolo, Rome by Giovanni Paolo Panini," The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum Bulletin, vol. 5, no. 6, Jan. 1981, pp. 44, 53, 54, repr. fig. 2, p. 39.

Art-Commerce-Scholarship, London, Colnaghi, 1984, p. 129, repr. [not in exhibition].

Rowlands, Eliot W., The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Italian Paintings 1300-1800, Kansas City, 1996, p. 409, fig. 49a.

Arisi, Ferdinando, Gian Paolo Panini, Soncino, Edizioni dei Soncino, 1991, p. 134, fig. 24, p. 132.

Arisi, Ferdinando, Giovanni Paolo Panini, 1691-1765, Milan, Electa, 1993, p. 43, repr. p. 42.

Kuntz, Margaret, "Designed for Ceremony: The Capella Paolina at the Vatican Palace," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 62, no. 2, June 2003, p. 228, fig. 3, p. 230.

Exhibition HistoryPhiladelphia Museum of Art; Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, 2000, no. 269, p. 421, repr. (col.).Comparative ReferencesSee also Preussischer Kulturbesitz: 25 Jahre in Berlin, Sammeln-Forschen-Bilden, (Jahrbuch Preussischer Kulturbesitz Sonderband 3), Berlin, 1986, no. 61, p. 66, repr. (col.) p. 308.