Roman campagna with travellers, oil on canvas, 195 x 145 cm, framed

Provenance:
European private collection
We are grateful to Professor Giancarlo Sestieri for confirming the attribution to Jan Frans van Bloemen and Pieter van Bloemen for the present painting after examining it in the original.

The present painting can be compared to another work by Jan Frans van Bloemen, Campagna laziale sull’imbrunire (oil on canvas, 75 x 100 cm), Rome, Doria-Pamphilj Collection. The animals in the present composition, not usually found in the works of Jan Frans, are by his brother Pieter, with whom the artist often collaborated when they were both in Rome. As Sestieri has suggested, this work can also be compared to a group of paintings from the artist’s early period, executed, as here, with the collaboration of his brother (see A. Busiri Vici, Jan Frans van Bloemen: Orizzonte e l’origine del paesaggio romano settecentesco, Rome 1974, cat. nos. 2–7).

In the period of his Roman career, Jan Frans van Bloemen was strongly rooted in the genre paintings of the second half of the 17th Century. At the beginning of his career, he was close to the tradition of the classicist landscape painting initiated in Rome by Domenichino and then developed by Claude Lorrain and Poussin, but he was to create his own distinct style of pastoral classicism.

The present painting may be dated to between 1692/3 and 1711, the period when the Doria Pamphilj family actively commissioned many of his works. The large dimensions of the present canvas, referred to as “imperial”, may indicate that the painting had a prestigious destination and suggests that it was probably commissioned by an important Roman family. Van Bloemen was immersed in the artistic milieu of the city and came into contact with some of the most important collectors of the time, such as the Rospigliosi, the Colonna, the Doria Pamphili, the Ruspoli, as well as the Borghese. Van Bloemen remained in Rome until his death in 1749.