Gezicht op de villa Mecenate bij Tivoli

227 View of the so-called Villa of Maecenas at Tivoli

Black and white chalk on grey tinted paper.
560 x 407 mm.
Inscribed by the artist (?), lower right: een gezicht van Tivoli op villa / Meacenas (pen and grey ink).
Inscribed on the verso, lower left: Gezigt van Tivoli / op de Villa van Mecenas / verkoping van / G Muller 1827 / f G U de 2 stuks (pencil).
PROVENANCE: see No. 226.
Inv. 1854: W2 56 ‘gezigt van Tivoli op de Villa de Mecenas’ or 57 ‘dito’; inv. 1864: Y 61 ‘De waterval van Tivoli’ or 62 ‘dito’ (as by ‘Lodewyk Johannes Kleijn’).
INV. NO.: Z 12.
EXHIBITIONS: Haarlem/Rome 1984, no. 58, repr.; ’s-Hertogenbosch 1996, fig. 73.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Scholten 1904, p. 509; Van Regteren Altena 1964, no. 41 (fig. 12).

These two sheets were probably conceived as a pair, and sold as such in 1827. They were most likely made in 1810 or 1811, the years Kleijn spent in Rome. They are two of the only three known landscape drawings by Kleijn: the third sheet is in ’s-Hertogenbosch (Noordbrabants Museum; exh. ’s-Hertogenbosch 1996, fig. 74).
During his period in Paris, Kleijn was urged to study more from nature and also to practise his use of colour, in order to rid himself of what was called the ‘icy tone’ of his work (exh. Haarlem/Rome 1984, Bijlage 1, under Kleijn). Perhaps these large studies on grey paper are a reflection of the artist practising his concept of depth and warmth in nature studies. Coloured or tinted paper was not often used by Dutch artists in Italy at this time. Teerlink# made several large drawings on blue paper in pencil and white chalk, sometimes with added black chalk, for example in Amsterdam (private collection; exh. Amsterdam 1995-II, nos. 59, 60, reprs.; Rijksprentenkabinet; exh. Amsterdam 1971-72, nos. 36, 37, repr., 38).
The 1864 inventory attributes these sheets erroneously to Lodewijk Johannes Kleijn (1817-1897). Scholten corrected that to ‘Pieter Rudolf Kleijn’ in his catalogue of 1904.
The waterfalls at Tivoli near Rome were a popular subject with foreign artists working in Italy. According to classicist art theory, a waterfall was a near-impossible subject for artists, since the overwhelming impression of sound and movement cannot be conveyed by visualisation in a static drawing or painting. By the early 19th century, however, under influence of nascent romanticism, the depiction of this dramatic natural phenomenon had become a regular subject in art (exh. Amsterdam 1997-98, p. 208; exh. Haarlem/Rome 1984, pp. 125-26).