Artworks

 In his still definitive article on the eighteenth-century Roman, Neo-Classical painter Vincenzo

Camuccini, Ulrich Hiesinger wrote, “Camuccini’s talents as a painter and his official positions in

the papal government made him, after Canova, the most sought after and influential artist in Rome

during the early decades of the nineteenth century…Contemporaries considered him one of the

few living artists worthy of comparison with the great figures of Italy’s artistic past.” 1  Born in

Rome, Camuccini was trained by his older brother, Pietro, a part-time painter, as well as restorer

and dealer, and the painter Domenico Corvi, but it was through observation and study of the

Renaissance masters in the Vatican, especially Raphael and Michelangelo, that the artist perfected

his superb drawing technique. Although he painted some religious subjects and portraits, the bulk

of Camuccini’s works were devoted to scenes of Greco-Roman history.

Elected to the Academy of St. Luke in 1802, Camuccini then became its head in 1805 through

suspension of the minimum age requirements. He served until 1810 and then was a professor of

painting until, on Canova’s death in 1822, he once again assumed the presidency until 1827. His

long association with the papacy began in 1803 when Pius VII appointed him Director of the

Vatican Mosaic Studios. Then in 1809, he was named Superintendent of the Vatican Picture

Galleries, and from 1814 until the year before his death he served in his most important capacity

as Inspector of Public Paintings for Rome and the Papal States.

Following Napoleon’s annexation of the Papal States in 1810, Camuccini travelled to Paris, and

received commissions (unfulfilled) from the Emperor and also met the leading French Neo-

Classical painters David, Gros, and Gerard. However, he soon returned to Rome and continued his

prolific career, fulfilling commissions from both Italian patrons and many foreigners visiting on

the Grand Tour. As Hiesinger noted “these contemporary visitors came eventually to regard

Camuccini himself as a local landmark, while for many Romans he became the very symbol of

continuing national pride in the arts.”2  Camuccini also formed a major collection of Old Master

paintings, including a notable Madonna  by Raphael. In 1833 when excavations at the Pantheon

uncovered the tomb of Raphael, it was Camuccini who was asked to record the findings.

Camuccini first achieved fame with two great historical compositions produced over several years

– The Death of Julius Caesar  and The Death of Verginia . They were commissioned by an English

patron in 1793 but only completed by 1818, by which time the original patron had died, and the

enormous works were acquired by Ferdinand I for his court in Naples. For these scenes of ancient

history, Camuccini already began his life-long practice of studying antique models and aided by

archaeologists perfected the details of costume and architecture. As Hiesinger noted, “Together the

Caesar  and Verginia  set a pattern for the meticulously executed expansive historical compositions

that were to become Camuccini’s stock-in-trade.” And he further observed that the success of

Camuccini’s works was due to its rejection of the older Baroque traditions in favor of a “deliberate

and painstaking formality, suggesting an aspiration to the absolute in their clarity and precision.”3

 The austere modernism of this Neo-Classical approach, inspired in part by the writings of

Winkelmann and the examples of Mengs and Canova, is evident in the many evocations of Roman

history that Camuccini derived from the reading of ancient texts.

This relatively early work it is clearly a scene of triumph with the heroic victor in a grand helmet

standing in a chariot drawn by several rambunctious horses. A crowd by his side and behind him

carry in the trophies of his victory. The background setting of pyramidal structures suggests that

the scene is not set in Rome. Distinctive and providing a possible clue to the identity of the subject

are the two elephants in the background who are ridden by several nearly naked men. Elephants

had been part of triumphal processions since ancient times (fig. 1), but of course the most famous

ancient hero to make use of elephants was the Carthaginian Hannibal, and when sold in 2015, this

painting was in fact identified as The Triumph of Hannibal .4  But Hannibal was an African and the

victorious figure here is obviously a Roman and dressed in the manner Camucinni usually

employed for his Roman figures (fig. 2). The greatest of Roman leaders to be depicted in a

triumphal scene with elephants was Julius Caesar in the well-known series of paintings by Andrea

Mantegna at Hampton Court, which were widely circulated in woodcuts (fig. 3). They in turn

served to inspire A Roman Triumph  also with elephants by Rubens (fig. 4). Another triumph with

elephants, however, was also staged by Caesar’s rival, Pompey. On his return to Rome in 61 B. C.,

following his victories in Sicily and Africa, Pompey demanded a triumphal entry, and seeking to

outdo his rivals had his chariot pulled by an elephant to represent his African conquests. His use of

the exotic beast, however, was not successful as this elephant was too large to fit through the city

gate. The triumph of Pompey with several elephants was depicted in an elaborate drawing by the

eighteenth-century French artist Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (fig. 5).5

 Yet another Roman consul who had engaged in warfare with Hannibal and his elephants and made

a triumphal entry with the beasts was Marcus Claudius Marcellus (ca. 268 -208 B. C.). Two

drawings6  of a Roman triumph by Camuccini (figs. 6 and 7), quite similar to the present oil sketch,

have been identified as representing this heroic figure. In these works the composition moves from

left to right; the elephants and their riders are in the background, and the setting more clearly

seems to represent the classical structures of ancient Rome. When it was exhibited in 1978, the

version from the Camuccini family collection (fig. 7) was identified as the celebratory triumph of

Marcellus over the Gauls,7  but in fact it and our oil sketch more likely represent his later triumph

celebrating his defeat of the forces of Hannibal in the 2nd  Punic War of 261 B. C. On this occasion,

according to the Roman historian Livy, “eight elephants were led in procession to signalize

Marcellus’ victory over the Carthaginians.”8  If this is indeed the subject then the number of

elephants was reduced by Camuccini for the sake of compositional clarity. Camuccini was a most

conscientious artist who produced many preliminary drawings and bozzetti  to perfect his

compositions, their lighting and modeling, so it is indeed likely that having first designed a left to

right format in the two drawings, he then shifted in this brilliant oil sketch to a right to left format.

While the two careful preliminary drawings reveal what Anthony Clark characterized as

Camuccini’s “vigorous force of organization,”9  this oil sketch is remarkable for its immediacy,

spontaneity, and luminous brilliance. As Roberta Olson has observed, “Camuccini’s historical

canvases reflect a fine chromatic sensibility derived from the eighteenth century masters,”10  and

that is certainly true in this case, especially in the figure of the hero in his golden armor and pink

cape dramatically set against a cloud of smoke  (fig. 8).

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