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Architectural Capriccio

Artist Giuseppe Galli Bibiena (Italian, 1696 - 1756)
Dateca. 1745
MediumBrown ink with blue and gray wash on paper
DimensionsUnframed: 22 x 36 3/4 inches (55.88 x 93.35 cm)
Framed: 28 1/4 x 43 x 2 inches (71.76 x 109.22 x 5.08 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: acquired through the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Milton McGreevy through the Mission Fund
Object numberF61-37
On View
Not on view
Collections
DescriptionThe building at the right is apparently based on Fischer von Erlach's reconstruction of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus.Exhibition History

Scenes and Spectacles: The Theatre-World of the Baroque, An Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, Prints, Books, Sculpture, Embroideries, and Porcelain, Queens College Art Collection, Paul Klapper Library, Queens College of the City University of New York, New York, March 19-April 13, 1962, no. 26, as Forum with Classical Buildings.

Drawings Collection of Milton McGreevy, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, March 7-April 4, 1965, no. 47, as A Forum with Classical and Baroque Buildings.

Drawings by the Bibiena Family, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, January 10-February 28, 1968, no. 40, as Forum with Classical Buildings.

City Views, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1983, no. 17, as A Forum with Classical and Baroque Buildings (imaginary).

Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Washington University Gallery of Art, Saint Louis, MO, September 22-December 3, 1989, unnumbered, as Architectural Capriccio with Classical and Baroque Buildings.

Gallery Label
The artist came from a family of stage designers and architects, and the present drawing may be intended for a stage set. Many of the buildings are imaginary, like the mausoleum-like structure in the right background surmounted by a pyramid, but the Roman Coliseum opposite is accurate enough. The obelisk in the foreground is like many that adorned the city squares of Rome from the Renaissance onwards, as they still do today. The architecture may indeed be a kind of fantasy reconstruction of ancient Rome.
Provenance

With Yvonne Ffrench, London, by February 15, 1961;

Purchased from Ffrench by Durlacher Brothers, New York, stock no. 771D, February 15-July 12, 1961 [1];

Purchased from Durlacher Brothers by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1961.

NOTES:

[1] Getty Research Library, Los Angeles, Durlacher Brothers Records, Box 14, Ledger 1937-1966, copy in Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.

Published References

Scenes and Spectacles: The Theatre-World of the Baroque, An Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, Prints, Books, Sculpture, Embroideries, and Porcelain, exh. cat. (New York: Queens College Art Collection, Paul Klapper Library, Queens College of the City University of New York, 1962), 10, 31, 39, (repro.), as Forum with Classical Buildings.

“Drawings Collection of Milton McGreevy,” Bulletin (The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum) 4, no. 6 (March 7-April 4, 1965): 7, 30-31, (repro.), as A Forum with Classical and Baroque Buildings.

Drawings by the Bibiena Family, exh. cat. (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1968), unpaginated, as Forum with Classical Buildings.

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, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 178, (repro.), as A Forum with Classical and Baroque Buildings.

 

Ross E. Taggart, City Views, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1983), 11, 24, (repro.), as A Forum with Classical and Baroque Buildings (imaginary).

 

Roger Ward and Mark S. Weil, Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, exh. cat. (St. Louis, MO: Washington University Gallery of Art, 1989), 11, 40, (repro.), as Architectural Capriccio with Classical and Baroque Buildings.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 185, (repro.), as Forum with Classical Buildings.  

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.


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44-29/4 A,B
Entrance to a Palace
Ferdinando Bibiena
1712
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Study for "The Triumph of Bacchus"
Nicolas Poussin
1635
54-83
Horatio Cocles at the Bridge
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ca. 1810
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Roman Monuments
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32-193/4
The Flagellation of Christ
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Diana
Abraham Bloemaert
17th century
81-30/5
The Ruined Bridge
Hubert Robert
18th century
81-30/68
recto overall
Bartholomeus Breenbergh
81-30/10
Stage Design
Fabrizio Galliari
mid-18th century
81-30/28
Vase of Flowers
Jan van Huysum
mid-18th century
81-30/35