From the art dealer’s website, 03 January 2009
Bringing new scholarly research to light, Robilant + Voena is pleased to announce the exhibition Italian views from the early 1700s by Gaspar van Wittel (1652-1736). With thirty loans from mainly British and Italian private collections such as Chatsworth, Compton Verney, The Holburne Museum of Art in Bath, Holkham Hall, Petworth House and many anonymous lenders, this exhibition will include works that have never been seen by the public before. Key examples completed during the early 1700s in Rome, its surrounding countryside as well as Naples, Florence, Bologna, Venice and some areas of Lombardy have been selected by Dr. Laura Laureati, the renowned scholar on the artist. Highlights will include the Ripa Grande, Venice, View of the Riviera di Chiaia,
Naples and The Tevere at San Giovanni dei Fiorentini.
An illustrated catalogue will be published to further our understanding of the catalogue raisonnĆ© written by Dr. Laureatiās brother-in-law Dr. Giuliano Briganti and to include Italian views, some of which were unpublished in the 1996 monograph and have since been attributed to the Dutch painter.
This is the first such exhibition on Gaspar van Wittel outside of Italy, and we hope it will serve to give this hugely important artist a much overdue public reexamination.