Lot 45: Giovanni Battista Viola (Bologna 1576-1662 Rome)

Landscape with Saint John the Baptist preaching
oil on canvas
44 1/2 x 61 1/4 in. (113 x 155.6 cm.)

Rome, Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Venezia, Domenichino 1581-1641, 10 October 1996 - 14 January 1997, p. 168, fig. 10, illustrated.
Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, Claude Lorrain and the Ideal Landscape, 15 September - 6 December 1998, no. 11, illustrated.

L. Salerno, 'The Picture Gallery of Vincenzo Giustiniani II: The Inventory', The Burlington Magazine, CII, March 1960, p. 95.
R. Spear, 'A Forgotten Landscape Painter: Giovanni Battista Viola,' The Burlington Magazine, CXXII, May 1980, pp. 311-2.

(Probably) Giustiniani collection, Rome, 1638.
(Probably) Lord Radstock; Christie's, 12 May 1826, lot 53, from where purchased by
Lord Ailesbury for 577.10 gns.
Gonzalo Cordova Lara collection.

Giovanni Battista Viola, a neglected but significant landscape painter in early Seicento Rome, was born in Bologna, where, according to Baglione, he studied with Annibale Carracci. In the first years of the seventeenth century, he moved to Rome with his compatriot Francesco Albani, whose mother-in-law he later married. In 1610, Viola worked with Albani and Domenichino at the Villa Giustiniani at Bassano di Sutri, and in 1616-7 he painted some of the landscape backgrounds in the Apollo series at the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati, for which Domenichino provided the figures. He again worked with Domenichino (as well as Guercino and Paul Bril) in the Casino Ludovisi in 1621, each contributing a landscape fresco. Although largely forgotten after his death, Viola enjoyed considerable fame and success during his lifetime; in addition to the works cited above, landscapes by him are known to have been in the collection of Cardinal Mazarin and of the Borghese and Doria Pamphilij families. Viola's landscapes, which have often been confused with those of Annibale Carracci and Domenichino, have a distinctly romantic character, and were an important source of inspiration for the later paintings of Claude Lorrain.

The recently rediscovered Landscape with Saint John the Baptist preaching is identifiable with one in a series of four paintings by Viola listed in the inventory of the collection of Vincenzo Giustiniani, dated 9 February 1638:

30-31-32-33. Quattro quadri sopraporti Maggiori delli detti di sopra, con Paesi con varie historie di figurine picciole; cioà Uno con l'Historia del Battesino di Christo nel fiume Giordano, il 2o con Christo sopra una barca di Pescatori, che pescano nel mare, il 3o di S. Gio. Battista, che predica al popolo, il 4o della Madonna, e S. Gioseppe che vanno in Egitto, dipinti in tela, palmi 5 lar. 6 in circa di mano del Viola senza cornice (quoted in Salerno, op. cit., p. 95).

The dimensions of the present painting, 113 by 155.6 cm., correspond quite closely with those indicated in the inventory, as 5 by 6 palmi roughly equal some 112 by 134 cm. The picture seems to have later passed into the collection of Lord Radstock: a work of the same subject and dimensions is listed in the catalogue of his sale in 1826, where it is further described as having been painted by Domenichino for the Giustiniani family:

'No. 53: A Grand Mountainous Landscape with Figures: a strong light falls upon the Group in the fore-ground, and discloses the varied expressions of eagerness and attention with which a crowd are listening to John the Baptist preaching: some trees, rising to a noble elevation, display their fine masses of foliage, and give a depth to the centre of the Landscape, while a range of Mountains beyond them, receives a breadth of clear light that falls upon them from a beautiful silvery Sky. This Landscape is one of a set of four well known chef d'oeuvres (sic.), executed by Domenichino for the Giustiniani family. It is 3 ft. 8 inches high, by 5 ft. 1 inch in length.' (quoted in Spear, op. cit., p. 311).

The Landscape with Saint John the Baptist preaching is in all probability a pendant to the Landscape with St. John baptising, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, which Spear has identified as one of the four paintings by Viola cited in the Giustiniani inventory and datable to the artist's late years (op. cit.). Spear and Stephen Pepper have concurred in the attribution of both paintings as late works by Viola. There are two smaller versions of the same subjects in the State Galleries, Florence, which Spear considers reductions of the Giustiniani paintings. He has also noted that the Cambridge picture is the only one of the original set of four still apparently in the Giustiniani collection in 1787 (op. cit., p. 312, no. 60).