The Museo del Prado in Madridpresents View of Queen Maria Amalia of Saxony at the Arch of Trajan in Benevento by Antonio Joli in an exhibition on view through February 26, 2012.
Antonio Joli (Modena, 1700 – Naples 1777), View of Queen Maria Amalia of Saxony at the Arch of Trajan in Benevento, Ca.1759. Oil on canvas, 77.5 x 131cm., Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, Donation of the FAMP
View of Queen Maria Amalia of Saxony at the Arch of Trajan in Benevento is an architectural landscape executed in 1759 by the set painter and vedutista Antonio Joli (Modena, 1700 – Naples, 1777). Along with this painting, donated to the museo by the Fundación Amigos del Museo del Prado (FAMP), the exhibition includes three paintings by the artist from the Museum’s collection as well as various landscapes and views by his predecessors such as Panini and Vanvitelli, a group of etchings, two of them by Piranesi, and a Portrait of Queen Maria Amalia of Saxony by Giuseppe Bonito. Together, these works will enable the visiting public to locate Joli’s canvas within the collections of the Prado and to appreciate the distinctive nature of this architectural landscape, which reflects the new intellectual attitude with which Grand Tour travellers of the day approached classical monuments. In addition, the presence in the painting of Queen Maria Amalia and an artist engaged in drawing refers to the importance of patronage for the conservation and dissemination of the art of antiquity.
– www.museodelprado.es