(Rome 1672 – circa 1720)
Capricci of ruins with figures: An Allegory of Spring; and
An Allegory of Autumn,
oil on canvas, each 98 x 73 cm, framed, a pair (2)

We are grateful to David Marshall for confirming the attribution of the present pair of pictures to Alberto Carlieri on the basis of photographs.

The present pair of canvases depict idealised ruined colonades, overgrown with foliage, shadowing the heroic forms of statues, while nymphs, cupids and a satyr frolic below. Carlieri indicates his theme of the seasons via the central figural groups in each composition. In one, cupids weave a floral wreath, alluding to Spring, and in the other the satyr reclines beside a gilded bowl from which bunches of grapes protrude, symbolising autumn and the wine harvest, laden with both sacred and profane meaning.

In terms of his Roman artistic milieu, Carlieri was foremost painter of capricci and of ruins from the generation which preceded Giovanni Paolo Panini, and followed on from Giovanni Ghisolfi. Carlieri was trained in the studio of Andrea Pozzo, where he was assumed by eighteenth century art historians to have painted Pozzos’ staffage, with ‘moving, well colored and very delicious figurines’ (P. A. Orlandi, L’Abecedario pittorico [...], Naples 1733, p. 46). Carlieri’s oeuvre was obscured by the attributions of many of his works to Panini, until Marshall’s work in re-discovering the master’s works (see D. R. Marshall, The architectural work of 1700: the paintings of Alberto Carlieri [1672-1720], pupil of Andrea Pozzo, in: Artibus et historiae, no. 50, London 2004, pp. 39-126).

The female figure, seated, disrobing to the right of the satyr, finds her echo in Carlieri’s Bacchic scene on a river background formerly in Cremona, Brunelli collection (see G. Sestieri, Il Capriccio Architettonico in Italia nel XVII e XVIII secolo, Rome 2015, vol. I, nos. 40 a-b, pp. 186-187). Stylistic affinities are also evident in two other paintings by Carlieri, Christ baptizes the children and St. Peter baptizes the centurion Cornelius, conserved in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.