With Arthur Tooth & Sons, London;

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby’s, 28 March 1979, lot 69 (as Carle van Loo);
Collection of the British Rail Pension Fund;

From where sold, London, Sotheby’♏s, 5 July 1995, lot 54 (as Louis-Gabriel Blan🎀chet);

With Colnaghi & Co. Ltd, London.

Twickenham, Marble Hill House, 1985–1995, on loan;

Philadelphia Museum of Art, 27 February – 21 May 2000; Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, 17 June – 7 September 2000, Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, no. 182;

Rome, Palazzo Venezia, Il Settecento a Roma, 10 November 2005 – 26 February 2006, no. 77.

F. Arisi, Gian Paolo Panini e i fasti della Roma del ’700, Rome 1986, reproduced in colour, frontispiece (as Charles-André van Loo);

Subleyras 1699–1749, exhibition catalogue, Paris and Rome 1987, p. 123, reproduced (asﷺ Louis-Gabriel Blanchet);

M. Kiene, Panini, ex🧸hibition catalogue, Paris, Plaisance and Braunschweig 1992–93, p. 21 (as Carle van Loo);

G. Sestieri, Repertorio della Pittura Romana della Fine del Seicento e del Settecento, Turin 1994, vol. I, p. 30, vol.ꦯ II, no. 125, reproduced (as Louis-Gabriel Blanchet);

E. P. Bowron in Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia and Houston 2000, p. 328, no. 🔴182, reproduced;

A. di Croce, in Il Settecento a Roma, exh🦂ibition catalogue, Rome 2005–06, pp. 196–97, no. 77, reproduced;

F. Petrucci, Pittura di Ritratto a Roma. Il Settecento, Rome 2010, vol. I, p. 80, fig. 85, reproduced; vol. II, p. 431, fig. 157, reproduced (as Louis-Gabriel Blanchet).

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's:Structural ConditionThe canvas has been lined and this is ensuring an even and secure structural support.Paint surfaceThe paint surface has an even varnish layer which has blanched in several areas and revarnishing would certainly be beneficial.Inspection under ultra-violet light shows small scattered retouchings, including:1) small retouchings in the background, particularly in the upper right behind the sitter,2) a number of small spots and lines on his face, including a line across his nose,3) a line running up from the lower horizontal framing edge, which is approximately 17 cm in length and runs through the sitter's red draperies, with a shorter line, approximately 7 cm in length, running across one of the sitter's fingers. There are other small, scattered retouchings. There may be other retouchings beneath old, opaque varnish layers, which are not identifiable under ultra-violet light.SummaryThe painting would therefore appear to be in good and stable condition and would benefit from revarnishing.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This portrait is the only known stand-alone portrait of the great painter of Roman views Giovanni Paolo Panini. Panini did paint likenesses of himself but only as one of many characters in several of his own narrative works.¹ It was painted in Rome in 1736 by Louis-Gabriel Blanchet, a virtuoso portraitist from Paris who painted many of the likenesses of the leading social and political figures in Rome of the day, such as Prince Charles Edward Stuart (‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, the Young Pretender) and Henry Benedict Stuart, both sons of the exiled Jacobite ‘Old Pretender’ James Francis Stuart.

Panini is shown before a dimly-lit canvas resting upon an easel, his working hand holding a stylus and leaning on a large portfolio. He wears a richly embroidered blue velvet jacket through which protrudes a sumptuous white chemise. A brilliant red cloak surrounds him like an ancient toga and completes the tricolore of colour. It is at once grand and informal, the painter elaborately dressed for a formal portrait but with an informality to his comportment of the clothes and to his pose, leaning forward rather than standing straight and turning his head sharply to his left to engage us with his smiling gaze. The painting thus belies both the standing, success and elegance of sitter (he is shown as an artista-gentiluomo) and the brilliance of its painter, who has brought a richඣness of character to both the painting and its subject. Few portraits by Blanchet can be so successful in desc🍸ribing their sitter.

That Panini chose Blanchet to paint his portrait is not surprising given his strong links to the French community in Rome. In 1718 he chose Reynaud Levieux, an orfèvre from Langeudoc, as godfather to his eldest son; his second wife Catherine Gosset was daughter of a French banker in Rome and sister-in-law of Nicolas Vleughels, director of the French Academy in Rome from 1724–37 where Panini himself taught perspective. Unusually for a roman painter he was even granted the honour of membership of the Académie Royale in Paris, and was patronised by the Duc de Choiseul and Cardinal Melchior de Polignac (Louis XV’s ambassador in Rome) amongst many others. He was to influence many a French landscape painter in Rome, particularly so Claude-Joseph Vernet and Hubert Robert.²

For a long time the portrait was thought to be by Charles André Van Loo. However, upon relining in 1979 the following inscription was discovered on the reverse of the original canvas: Paolo Panini, peintre d'Architecture / Orig. [le] Peint par G. Blanchet a Rome. Three years later in 1982, during the restoration of the paint surface by Viola Pemberton-Pigott, the cover of the folio was found to be entirely overpainted. Upon removal of the overpaint, traces of the original signature and date were discovered, the details of which are recorded in subsequent literature and sales catalogues as reading: L G Blanchet [fec]it / 1736. The traces are now only visible to the very keenest of eyeജs.

1. Such as in the Preparations to celebrate the birth of the Dauphin in France in 1729 in Piazza Navona, Rome, 1731 (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin), or the Interior of the Picture Gallery of Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga (Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT).

2. Factual information is taken from E. P. B♍owron, ♏2000.