Circle of Hendrik Frans van Lint, (Antwerp, 1684 – Rome, 1763), City view with river, boats and bridge in the background

Scope of Hendrik Frans van Lint, (Antwerp, 1684 – Rome, 1763)

City view with river, boats and bridge in the background

Oil on panel, cm. 14 x 20,5

With frame, 36 x 47 cm

The Flemish Hendrik Frans van Lint (Antwerp 1684 – Rome 1763), nephew of the Antwerp-born view painter Peter (Antwerp 1609 – 1690) and father of Giacomo (Rome 1723 – 1790), although born in Flanders and spent the first part of his training there, appears to be known above all for his activity in the Italian context: the Dutch painter specialized in the genres of landscape and view in Rome. The stay in Rome represented for van Lint, as for many other Nordic artists resident in the city between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, an indispensable premise for updating themselves in art and expanding their circle of commissions. Hendrik Frans, landscape and view painter, stayed in the papal capital for two thirds of his life: here his son Giacomo was born, who followed in his father's footsteps by creating almost exclusively views of Rome. In Rome, Hendrik Frans, better known in Italy as “Lo Studio”, became an emulator of the Dutch view painter Gaspar van Wittel, known in Italy mainly under the pseudonym Vanvitelli, and created Roman and Lazio views and landscapes of particular fantasy, following the “ideal” and “classical” poetics of the seventeenth-century painting of Claude Lorrain and Gaspard Dughet. This type of production, entirely intended for the market, became standardized in the last years of the artist's activity, who loved to portray both the glorious remains of ancient Rome and the new monuments of modern Rome. Van Lint's works can be generally divided into two categories: idealized and Arcadian landscapes populated by a vast range of picturesque figures and purely topographical and highly realistic views: the follower of van Lint who created this beautiful City View with river, boats and bridge in the background is certainly inspired by this second strand of the production of the artist originally from Antwerp. The artist's representation of the landscape is lenticular and absolutely free of idealization: the painter presents the banks of the Tiber, also showing the crudest aspects of the reality of the time, in which stately buildings and industrious boatmen coexist with the poor and situations of degradation.

The kneeler is in carved and sculpted dark walnut. In the center it has a mask decoration, while it is decorated along the edges with pilasters with caryatids in strong relief and masks with different expressions. It has a drawer under the top with a frame. Separated from the drawer by a projecting frame is a door opening, surrounded by an elegantly carved frame. It has a fold-down shelf. The projection of the top is emphasized by a denticulated band, while the rounded base has a pod decoration.