(Bergamo 1604–1670 Rome) and (Naples 1609/10 – ?1675)
Elegant figures on the terrace of a palace by a harbour,
oil on canvas, 102.5 x 130.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, France;
art market, France;
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to David R. Marshall for suggesting the attribution on the basis of photographs and for his help in cataloguing the present lot.

This harbour scene by Viviano Codazzi dates to his early artistic production in Naples, before his move to Rome in 1648. This painting was probably painted in the late 1640s. Comparable works, several signed and dated in the 1640s and 1650s, can be found in David R. Marshall, Viviano and Niccolò Codazzi, Milan, 1993, pp. 94-143.

Viviano Codazzi’s interest in architecture and his attention to linear perspective probably resulted from early experiences working on decorative painted architecture, known as quadratura. Established in Naples by 1633 Codazzi was engaged in painting architecture in paintings and architectural decoration. This included work at the Certosa di San Martino and an important set of four paintings of scenes of ancient Roman life commissioned by the Spanish viceroy for the Buen Retiro palace in Madrid based on engravings with figures by Gargiulo of circa 1638. At around this time Codazzi developed the genre of easel paintings of imaginary architecture to supply the growing demand for framed pictures to decorate rooms in palaces. As a painter of architecture, he needed a specialist figure painter to provide the figures that brought his settings to life, and for this he turned again to Domenico Gargiulo, a collaboration that continued for a couple of years after Codazzi’s move to Rome in 1648. Their manner was continued in Naples by his two closest followers, Ascanio Luciano and Antonio di Michele. As a painter trained in quadratura Codazzi could invent buildings and did not need to observe them from life, although there are important exceptions, such as the View of Poggioreale in Besançon. He elaborated buildings that are notionally palaces, but which are in fact inventions that employ a repertory of forms subject to innumerable variations. The most important of these is the portico consisting of arches supported on columns forming either a single cell, as here, or elaborated into a complex multi-celled structure. These would be applied to palace-type facades. These structures are normally constructed in receding one-point perspective on one side of the picture, as here.

Because of this process Codazzi is unusual among architectural painters in that he rarely repeated himself, and each work that emerges often has surprising new details or combinations of elements. An example here is the detailing of the platform and steps in front of the portico, especially the inverted pyramid keystone. Another unusual detail that reveals the constructed, imaginary nature of the architecture is the way the second storey is only one bay wide, unlikely in a real building, and rises above a single storey building with a tiled roof. This lower storey breaks forward in the middle ground to form a kind of open loggia articulated at the front with a type of serliana: that is, arched bays separated by rectangular bays with a square opening above. The round window beneath the portico and the light grey colouring of the walls is often found in Codazzi’s Neapolitan works. Other characteristic Codazzi touches include the fancy ironwork of the railings and the supporting brackets beneath the window openings.

The figures, including the statues, are by Domenico Gargiulo, who places them artfully in the spaces provided by Codazzi. Typical Gargiulo figures are the group of three figures, some wearing black, engaged in conversation; the solitary man with a hat and slashed sleeves; the woman and child going up the steps; the pair of figures peering over the parapet; and the fisherman wearing trousers and pointing with both hands. The scene of shipping, with a galley and sailing ships, as well as the vegetation and the sky are also in Gargiulo’s style rather than Codazzi’s.