Live Auction 18953Italian Drawings From The Robert Landolt Collection
Luigi Vanvitelli (Naples 1700-1773 Caserta)
Lot 98

Luigi Vanvitelli (Naples 1700-1773 Caserta)

Design for a papal tomb (recto); Saint John and a faint sketch of a façade (verso)

Closed8 December 2020

Price Realised

GBP 1,250

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Luigi Vanvitelli (Naples 1700-1773 Caserta)
Design for a papal tomb (recto); Saint John and a faint sketch of a façade (verso)
inscribed with a scale and numbers ‘5, 10, 20, 30, 40’ and with inscription ‘CLEMENS XI ROME’ (recto)
black chalk, pen and brown ink, illegible watermark in a circle
13.5 x 9 1/8 in. (34.3 x 23.2 cm)

Michelangelo Pacetti (1793-1855), Rome (according to the 1960 auction catalogue).
Paul Fatio, Geneva (L. 3701); Nicolas Rauch, Geneva, 13-15 June 1960, lot 422, where acquired by Robert Landolt.

Specialist note


The son of the landscapist Gaspar van Wittel and himself an architect, most famously of the royal palace at Caserta for King Carlos III of Naples, Luigi left numerous architectural drawings for churches, palaces and villas in Naples and Rome. The nervous style of the present drawing can be compared to drawings such as one at the Reggia di Caserta (inv. 328; see Dessins napolitains. XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles. Collections des musées de Naples, exhib. cat., Paris, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 1983, no. 88, ill.).