The artist’s success is demonstrated by the number of autograph copies of his finest canvases, such as the View of the Campo Vaccino in Rome in the Cerruti Collection [...]

This lively View of the Campo Vaccino in Rome with the Coliseum in the background is the work of the painter Antonio Joli, who was born in Modena in around 1700 and received his early training from Raffaello Rinaldi. The artist soon demonstrated his preference for the landscape genre - suitable both for the production of paintings and stage sets - and devoted himself to it throughout his long and successful international career.¹ Joli initially drew inspiration from the dizzying perspectives of the Galli da Bibiena, then from the detailed works of Giovanni Paolo Pannini, whom he frequented during his period in Rome from 1720 onwards. While there, Joli also had the opportunity to further his studies by examining the works of Gaspar van Wittel and Filippo Juvarra. In 1725, at the end of his Roman apprenticeship, the artist returned to Modena and produced pieces such as Samson Destroying the Philistine Temple and the Fire of Troy in the Campori Collection (Modena, Museo Civico d’Arte), developing his own personal blend of the various sources that had inspired him.² In 1732, Joli moved to Venice, where he lived for ten years, consolidating his fame as a landscape artist, set designer (working for numerous theatres in the lagoon city, as well as in Padua, Modena and Reggio Emilia) and creator of temporary apparatus for the sumptuous public festivals organised in the city, for which some designs still exist today (Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kupferstichkabinett). However, Joli did not stop in Veneto, but moved to Lombardy in the early 1740s and then to Germany. From 1744 to 1749, he lived in London, where he worked as the set designer at the King’s Theatre and decorated the Richmond home of the influential impresario Count John James Heidegger with scenes of beautiful Italian, Swiss and Chinese locations.³ Upon the death of his patron, the artist agreed to work for the theatres of the Buen Retiro in Madrid and the Royal Palace in Aranjuez due to the intercession of the famous singer Farinelli. Joli remained in Spain until 1754, when he returned to Italy to work primarily in Venice and Naples, receiving continuous requests for his works from the courts and Europe’s major collectors. The artist’s success is demonstrated by the number of autograph copies of his finest canvases, such as the View of the Campo Vaccino in Rome in the Cerruti Collection, which also features in a copy owned by the Fondazione Sorgente Group in Rome. The two paintings stand out for their warm palette and can probably be dated to the early 1740s, around the time of the artist’s departure for northern Europe. 

Simone Mattiello

¹ Middione 1995; Manzelli 2000; Toledano 2006; Caserta 2012.

² Coccioli Mastroviti 2004, pp. 553-555.

³ Toledano 2004, pp. 49-68.