Antique Ruins with the "Parable of the Fish"

Artist Giovanni Paolo Panini (Italian, 1691 - 1765)

Date1744

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 19 1/2 × 26 3/8 inches (49.53 × 66.98 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number32-8

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionThis scene takes place in a setting dominated by elaborate Roman architectural ruins. Fragments of cornices, columns, and stone reliefs clutter the foreground, with a pool of water at center. In the left middle ground are remnants of a large classicall arch; a smaller arch at right is supported by Corinthian columns wiht broken pediments, on each of which stands a life-size statue. A bearded man wearing a blue robe and ocher mantle (Saint Peter) stands near the center and gestures to three fish resting on a stone slab. Next to him stands another bearded man. On or around the stone slab are a group of four men. Three other men sit at extreme left. To the right, a young woman walks toward the center with a small child. Two other children point toward Saint Peter. A low horizon line reveals a vast blue sky with clouds and a segment of the sea.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

N/A

Gallery Label

The cult of ruins became an obsession with visitors to Rome and Italy from the 16th century onwards, since it encouraged cultural tourists to meditate on the decline of great civilizations like the Roman Empire. This was thought to offer a morally beneficial warning on the vanity of earthly glory. In this example, the addition of Christian subject matter would also have generated reflections on the rise of Christianity and the fall of Roman paganism. The Roman ruins here are imaginary, but Panini also painted accurate topographical views of Rome like that of the Piazza del Popolo.

Provenance

Major Dermot H. B. McCalmont (b. 1887), Cheveley Park, Newmarket, Cambridgeshire, by November 26, 1920;

Purchased at his sale, Sporting Pictures and Works by Old Masters, Christie’s, London, November 26, 1920, lot 135, by Ashton;

London art market, by 1932;

With Newhouse Galleries, New York, by 1932;

Purchased from Newhouse by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1932.

Published References

“Nelson Gallery of Art Special Number,” The Art Digest 8, no. 5 (December 1, 1933): 28, (repro.), as Italian Ruins.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2^nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 169, as The Parable of the Fish.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 262, as The Parable of the Fish.

Ferdinando Arisi, Gian Paolo Panini (Piacenza: Cassa di Risparmio, 1961), 100, 176, (repro.), as Parabola del pesce.

Licia Ragghianti Collobi, Disegni della Fondazione Horne in Firenze, exh. cat. (Florence: Palazzo Strozzi, 1963), 30, as Parabola del pesce.

Estella Brunetti, “Il Panini e la monografia di F. Arisi,” Arte Antica e Moderna (April-June 1964): 179, 180.

Ralph T. Coe, “The Baroque and Rococo in France and Italy,” Apollo 96, no. 130 (December 1972): 541, as The Parable of the Fish [repr. in Denys Sutton, ed., William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City (London: Apollo Magazine, 1972), 73].

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 156, 589, as Parable of the Fish.

Richard E. Spear, Renaissance and Baroque Paintings from the Sciarra and Fiano Collections (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1972) 50, (repro.), as Antique Ruins with the Parable of the Fish.

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 260, as The Parable of the Fish.

Andrea Busiri Vici, Andrea Locatelli e il paesaggio romano del settecento (Rome: U. Bozzi, 1976), 23, 239, (repro.).

Edgar Peters Bowron, “A View of the Piazza del Popolo, Rome, by Giovanni Paolo Panini,” Bulletin (The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum) 5, no. 6 (January 1981): 43, 54n11, (repro).

L'opera ritrovata: Omaggio a Rodolfo Siviero, exh. cat. (Florence: Cantini, Edizioni d’Arte, 1984), 203, (repro.), as Parabola del pesce.

Ferdinando Arisi, Gian Paolo Panini e i fasti della Roma del ’700 (Rome: Ugo Bozzi, 1986), 145, 211, 238, 310, 401, 402, 403, (repro.), as La Parabola del pesce.

Ferdinando Arisi, Gian Paolo Panini (Soncino, Italy: Edizioni del Soncino, 1991), 36.

Andrea Busiri Vici, Giovanni Ghisolfi (1623-1683): Un pittore milanese di rovine romane, ed., Flaminia Cosmelli (Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 1992), 26-27, 81, (repro.), as La parabola del pesce.

Ferdinando Arisi, Giovanni Paolo Panini, 1691-1765 (Milan: Electa, 1993), 16.

Eliot W. Rowlands, The Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings 1300-1800, (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 412-417, (repro.), as Antique Ruins with the “Parable of the Fish”.

David R. Marshall, "Early Panini Reconsidered: The Esztergom Preaching of an Apostle and the Relationship between Panini and Ghisolfi" Artibus Et Historiae 18, no. 36 (1997): 141, 143-145, 147, 156, 186-187, 194n29, 195n49, 195n50, (repro.), as The “Parable of the Fish".

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