Circle of Hendrik Frans van Lint, (Antwerp, 1684 - Rome, 1763), City view with river, boats and bridge in the background

Circle of Hendrik Frans van Lint, (Antwerp, 1684 - Rome, 1763) City view with river, boats and bridge in the background Oil on panel, cm. 14 x 20.5 With frame, cm 36 x 47 The Fleming Hendrik Frans van Lint (Antwerp 1684 – Rome 1763), nephew of the view painter originally from Antwerp Peter (Antwerp 1609 – 1690) and father of Giacomo (Rome 1723 – 1790), although he was born in Flanders and spent the first part of his training there, is mostly known for his activity in Italy: the Dutch painter specialized in Rome in the genres of landscape and view painting. The Roman stay represented for van Lint, as for many other Nordic artists residing in the Eternal City between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, an indispensable premise to update himself in art and expand his clientele. Hendrik Frans, landscape and view painter, stayed in the papal capital for two-thirds of his life: here his son Giacomo was born, who followed in his father's footsteps, creating almost exclusively views of Rome. In the Eternal City Hendrik Frans, known mostly in Italy as “Lo Studio”, became an emulator of the Dutch view painter Gaspar van Wittel, known in Italy mainly under the pseudonym of Vanvitelli, and he created Roman and Lazio views and landscapes of particular fantasy, following the “ideal” and “classic” poetics of the seventeenth-century painting of Claude Lorrain and Gaspard Dughet. This type of production, entirely intended for the market, became standardized in the later years of the artist's activity, who loved to portray both the glorious remains of ancient Rome and the new monuments of modern Rome. Van Lint's works can be globally classified into two categories: idealized and arcadian landscapes populated by a vast range of picturesque figures and purely topographical and highly realistic views: the follower of van Lint who creates this beautiful City view with river, boats and bridge in the background is certainly inspired by this second strand of the production of the artist originally from Antwerp. The representation of the landscape put in place by the artist is lenticular and absolutely devoid of idealization: the painter presents the banks of the Tiber, also showing the harshest aspects of the reality of the time, in which noble palaces and industrious boatmen coexist with indigent people and situations of degradation.