Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti

Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti

Giovanni Paolo Panini

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This watercolor seems to have been intended as an artistic end in itself, since it is not a study for a known painting. Panini did use the composition, however, in a series of pairs of paintings executed between 1756 and 1758, representing picture galleries crowded with many views of either ancient or modern Rome. In the "Roma Moderna" of the first pair, which was commissioned by the Duke of Choiseul and is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Scalinata is seen from the same perspective as in this drawing. The "Roma Moderna" of the second pair, which is also in the Metropolitan Museum (52.63.2), includes the Scalinata as well, on the floor to the left of the Duke, just as it is in the Boston painting. In the third set, now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, the Scalinata is high on the wall to the right.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Scalinata della Trinità dei MontiScalinata della Trinità dei MontiScalinata della Trinità dei MontiScalinata della Trinità dei MontiScalinata della Trinità dei Monti

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.