View of Villa Borghese

Baur Johann Wilhelm

(Strasbourg 1607 - Vienna 1642)

This View of Villa Borghese was painted in 1636 by the Alsatian miniaturist Johann Wilhelm Baur, as we see from the inscription at the base of the fountain on the left. The work may have been directly commissioned by Prince Marcantonio II Borghese. It provides important evidence of the building’s appearance following its completion as well as its role as a centre of vibrant social life in that era.

Object details

Commentary

The work displays the name of the artist and the date of its execution on the base of the fountain on the left: ‘Jo. WILHELM BAUR FECIT. 1636’. As the inscription on the title block indicates, the subject is a miniature view of Villa Borghese. The painting constitutes important evidence for the 17th-century appearance of the structure, such as its white colour and the rich decorative programme of statues and reliefs on the façade. The date given in the painting tells us that it was made shortly after the Villa was completed. Construction of the Villa – initiated at the behest of Scipione Borghese – was at first led by the architect Flaminio Ponzio and later by Giovanni Vasanzio (Jan van Santen) after the former’s death. The features of the structure as depicted in the painting, in particular its white colour, show that it took its cue from classical architecture, in particular of the Augustan Era, when the use of marble became more popular. The miniature brings together a host of information about the Villa that can also be found in the other figurative and literary sources. The Newes Itinerarium Italiae by the German architect Joseph Furttenbach (1627), for example, noted the white colour of the structure’s exterior.

In the past, the Villa in Baur’s painting was described as being yellow in colour, with some scholars arguing that the original tint of its exterior was changed after Scipione’s death in 1633 (Heilmann 1973, p. 125). Yet a new reading of the image by Kristina Herrmann Fiore (1988, pp. 95-96) clarified that Baur’s use of yellowish colouring in some parts of the painting is accounted for by his rendering of the effects of light and shadow and of different distances, confirming that in 1636 the Villa still certainly had a white exterior.

The miniature not only attests to the appearance of Villa Borghese in the 17th-century but also its social role, through the depiction of a vivacious movement of people either walking or travelling in carriages in the large square in front of the building. The presence of an international public foregrounds the function of the Villa as a venue of diplomatic representation; indeed one of its first illustrious guests was the ambassador Hasekura Tsunenaga, who arrived from Japan in 1615 (Herrmann Fiore 1990, pp. 193-194, no. 67, and 1992, p. 43). The artist’s taste for detail is evident in the Villa’s façade, whose particular features are meticulously depicted, and in the crowd of people variously attired according to the era’s fashions.

The work is certainly one of the best known products of Baur’s oeuvre. It was probably destined for the Borghese Collection from the moment of its execution, perhaps having been directly commissioned by Prince Marcantonio II, who had become the family’s most prominent member following the death of Cardinal Scipione. Four other views of Rome by the same artist – circular in format – likewise form part of the Collection (inv. nos 481, 482, 488 and 489). Scholars believe them to have been executed at more or less the same time as the View of Villa Borghese. The five works in fact constitute an important core of Baur’s known production, a painter who made his mark as a miniaturist and was sought after by important figures of the 17th-century nobility.

In spite of the signature on the painting, the work was listed as ‘by Tempesta’ in the 1693 inventory and as ‘by Algardi’ in that of 1700. Only in 1790 was the correct attribution to Baur made, which was repeated in the 1833 Inventario fidecommissario. The last-named inventory, which curiously classified it as a work on stone, gives this description: ‘View of the palazzo of Villa Pinciana, by Johann Wilhelm Baur, 2 spans wide, 1 span 4 inches high, on stone’. The artist made a replica of this view, though with different figures, in a watercolour signed and dated 1641 (identified in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch by Salerno:  1976, p. 460). This work served as the model for the engraving made by Melchior Küssel, who reproduced a number of works by Baur in this medium: in 1670, Küssel indeed published an entire collection of engravings made from sketches by Baur, entitled Iconographia.

Pier Ludovico Puddu