(Naples 1642–1693 Genoa)
Figures by a ruined palace portico,
oil on canvas, 66 x 51 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Italy
We are grateful to David R. Marshall for confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a high resolution digital photograph.

The present painting appears to be previously unpublished and is therefore a new addition to the oeuvre of Niccolò Codazzi.

Marshall has suggested that this is a late work from the artist’s Genoese period. Indeed, the present work is comparable to the Capriccio with Triumphal Arch, Palace with complex Portico, and the Colosseum, conserved at Burghley House, Stamford, which was executed by the artist towards the end of the 1680s (see: D. R. Marshall, Viviano and Niccolò Codazzi and the Baroque Architectural Fantasy, Città di Castello 1993, p. 407, no. NC 65). The complex composition of architectural structures depicted in the present painting can also be seen in the Burghley House painting: this architectural feature was later taken up again by Niccolò, in simplified form, in other paintings such as the Ruined Palace Portico in Prague (see: Marshall, Ibid. p. 409, no. NC 67).

The present painting illustrates an imposing architectural ruin consisting of a projecting columned portico of seven bays at the back, with a further three in the middle, finally opening into a single, advanced entrance bay at the centre. The first two tiers of the structure support a second storey in which there are rectangular windows with triangular pediments. Some figures, together with horses, animate the scene in the foreground near the steps leading into the portico, while a view of a lake opens out in the background. As often occurs in view paintings, the figures may not by Codazzi, but by another hand.

Niccolò Codazzi was the son of Viviano and he trained in his father’s studio in Rome during the 1660s. He derived his view painting practice from his father and he also appears to have been active as a quadraturista and painter of ephemeral scenic apparatus. Niccolò not only worked in Rome, but also for noble Florentine families as well as for the Grand Duke of Tuscany. During the early 1680s he was in Paris, and with the support of Lebrun, was admitted to the Académie Royale. At the end of the decade he moved to Genoa where he collaborated on the decoration of the South Loggia of Palazzo Rosso with Paolo Gerolamo Piola.