About the Artwork
In this fine example of an early Roman ruin painting, Giovanni Paolo Panini brought together elements of disparate monuments — from the Arch of Titus, the Temple of Vespasian, and the Forum of Nerva — to create a triumphal arch that is wholly the product of his imagination. Each individual element would have been readily recognizable to Panini’s well-traveled clientele, who delighted in opportunities to test their knowledge of classical architecture. While such works were intended to pose witty challenges to the viewer, Panini has also introduced a serious element. The small figures who go blithely about their daily affairs in and around crumbling columns and plinths are a sobering reminder that, with the passage of time, all life will one day lie in ruins.
Ruins of a Triumphal Arch in the Roman Campagna
between 1717 and 1719
Giovanni Paolo Panini
1691-1765
Italian
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Oil on canvas
Unframed: 29 × 24 1/8 inches (73.7 × 61.3 cm) Framed: 36 1/2 × 32 × 3 inches (92.7 × 81.3 × 7.6 cm)
Paintings
European Painting
Gift of James E. Scripps
89.20
Public Domain
Markings
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Provenance
ca. 1717-1719, probably Compton Domvileprobably by descent to his great-nephew, Sir Compton Domvile, of Templeogue and Santry (near Dublin, Ireland);
Major Corbett-Winder (Vaynor Park, Berriew, Wales);
April 6, 1889, sold by (Christie's, London, England) Corbett-Winder sale, lot 89;
1889, purchased by James E. Scripps (Detroit, Michigan, USA);
1889-present, gift to the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
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Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Scripps, James E., ed. Catalogue of the Scripps Collection of Old Masters. Detroit, 1889, p. 63, no. 80.
"The Scripps Old Masters." The Collector 2, no. 13 (May 1, 1891): pp. 149-152; p. 151 [as "A Ruined Triumphal Arch Dedicated to the Emperor Vespasian; with Figures”].
Scripps, James E. Handbook of the Paintings Ancient and Modern, Belonging to the Detroit Museum of Art. Detroit, 1895, p. 35, no. 68 [as "A Ruined Triumphal Arch Dedicated to the Emperor Vespasian; with Figures”].
Handbook of Paintings by the Old Masters Belonging to the Detroit Museum of Art. Detroit, 1910, p. 45, no. 68.
Catalogue of Paintings, Sculpture and Contemporary Arts and Crafts. Detroit, 1920, p. 35, no. 22.
Heil, Walter, and Clyde H. Burroughs. Catalogue of Paintings in the Permanent Collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts of the City of Detroit. Detroit, 1930, no. 164 (ill.).
Richardson, E.P., ed. Catalogue of Paintings. Detroit, 1944, p. 99, no. 164.
Arisi, Ferdinando. Gian Paolo Panini. Milan, 1961, pp. 55, 59, 136–37, no. 73, (fig. 124).
Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts: A Check List of the Paintings Acquired Before June, 1965. Detroit, 1965, p. 84.
"Appendix IV: Loans to Museums and Art Galleries." Bulletin of the DIA 51, no. 1 (1972): p. 41.
Rome Through the Eyes of the Eighteenth Century. Exh. cat., University of Michigan Museum of Art. Ann Arbor, 1972, pp. 10–11, no. 27 (ill.) [as by an unknown follower of Panini].
Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Collections. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972, pp. 156, 579.
Busiri Vici, Andrea. Andrea Locatelli e il paesaggio romano del Settecento. Rome, 1976, p. 34.
Arisi, Ferdinando. Gian Paolo Panini: e i fasti della Roma del ‘700. Rome, 1986, pp. 73, 267, 284, no. 123 (ill.).
Masterpieces from The Detroit Institute of Arts. Exh. cat., Bunkamura Museum of Art. Tokyo, 1989, pp. 66, 210, cat. 34 (ill.).
Important Old Master Paintings. Sales cat., Sotheby’s. New York, May 16, 1996, lot 68.
Bissell, R. Ward, Andria Derstine and Dwight Miller. Masters of Italian Baroque Painting: The Detroit Institute of Arts. London, 2005, pp. 8, 134–135, no. 43 (ill.).
Derstine, Andria. "The Detroit Institute of Arts and Italian Baroque Painting." Buying Baroque: Italian Seventeenth-Century Paintings Come to America. Edgar Peters Bowron, ed. University Park, 2017, p. 94.
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Giovanni Paolo Panini, Ruins of a Triumphal Arch in the Roman Campagna, between 1717 and 1719, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of James E. Scripps, 89.20.
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