Giovanni Paolo Panini, 
Italian 1691-1765- 

View of Piazza Colonna with the Column of Marcus Aurelius, Rome; 

black chalk, pen and grey ink and watercolour on laid paper, watermark fragment fleur-de-lys with a crown, signed with initials ‘G.P.P.’ and indistinctly inscribed (lower left), further inscribed 'P.H.' (lower right), 25.3 x 36 cm. 

Provenance: 
William Esdaile (1758-1837), London; 
His sale, Christie's, London, 20 June 1840, lot 450 (2 gns to Hogarth). 
Unidentified collector's mark P. H. (L. 2084). 
Lore and Rudolf Heinemann, New York; 
Their sale, Christie's, London, 1 July 1997, lot 75. 
with Kate de Rothschild, London (Master Drawings, July 2001, no.11, illustrated). 
Private Collection, Europe. 

Exhibited: 
New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library & Museum, 'Drawings from the Collection of Lore and Rudolf Heinemann', 1973, no.32, illustrated. 

Note: 
By contrast with his extensive output of capricci, Panini’s detailed topographical ‘vedute’ of Rome like this view are rare. In this drawing, several important symbols of modern Rome can be identified around Piazza Colonna: the Palazzo Chigi and the Curia Innocenziana to the right, the Residenza di Monsignor Vicegerente at the centre, and the Chiesa dei Santi Bartolomeo e Alessandro dei Bergamaschi to the left. The same view appears in Panini’s painting ‘Modern Rome’, pendant to Ancient Rome, both in the Louvre [no.R.F. 1944-22; F. Arisi, ‘Gian Paolo Panini, e i fasti della Roma del’700’, Rome, 1986, no.500, ill.]. Other versions of these well-known views can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York [nos 52.63.1 and 52.63.2], the latter showing the Piazza Colonna from a different viewpoint, and in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [no.1975.805], also showing the Piazza Colonna from a different angle.