Andrea Locatelli ( Rome, 1695 - 1741), Architectural Caprice With Ruins

Andrea Locatelli ( Rome, 1695 - 1741)
Architectural caprice with ruins
Oil on canvas, cm 47 x 62
Critical File Prof. Alessandro Agresti


Andrea Locatelli ( Rome, 1695 - 1741) one of the most anxious Roman landscapers of the eighteenth century, he also devoted himself assiduously to the "Architectural Capirccio". The present building is a proof of this, containing ancient ruins: a pyramid certainly taken from that of Cestia, a male statue and a colossal equestrian statue paying homage to the masterpiece by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, La visione di Costantino. All around, among the rubble of a distant way, small figurines realizet with quick touches: a soldier in stretched armor and a mother with her children while two others, in the distance, seem to be busy looking at the horizon.
Andrea Locatelli ( Rome, 1695 - 1741) was born in Rome in 1695; of his formation with his father Giovanni Francesco and his uncle Pietro Lucatelli born in Rome in 1634, there is little information. There is also an apprenticeship at the marine painter Monsù Alto, of whom we know only two works traced by Marco Chiarini in the deposits of the Florentine museums. Later he worked with the landscape painter Fergioni until 1712, probably in the company of Paolo Anesi (Rome, 1697 - 1773). Locatelli after this date was active in full autonomy and accredited to the most famous Roman families. In fact, in 1715 he was called to participate in the decorations of the palace at the Corso di Francesco Maria Ruspoli. To the lost complex of landscapes, marine and genre scenes, created by an international team of specialists such as Alessandro Marchi or Froncois Simonot called the Borgognone, Locatelli contributed in fact creating the figures of a room. In the same years he works for the Ottoboni family; commissioned by Cardinal Pietro are paintings in the Palace of the Chancellery.