Lot 102: Giacomo Quarenghi , Valle Imagua 1744 - 1817 Saint Petersburg landscape with buildings and figures near a bridge Pen and black ink with gray and brown wash, over traces of black chalk; bears old attribution: Quarenghi dessin Original par Quarenghi y

Pen and black ink with gray and brown wash, over traces of black chalk; bears old attribution: Quarenghi dessin Original par Quarenghi y 803f36 / no.

measurements note 242 by 399 mm

Giacomo Quarenghi was born near Bergamo, where now circa six hundred of his drawings are preserved in the Biblioteca Civica. He became the favorite architect of Empress Catherine II, and was responsible for a large number of projects for public and private buildings in Russia (see lot 102) Quarenghi was a prolific draftsman, recording real views such as the ones of Bergamo or Rome, as well as making fanciful capricci like this example which includes a Roman tomb resembling that of Cecilia Metella on the via Appia. It can be stylistically compared to a number of the sheets now in Bergamo.υ1 1. See, for example, S. Angelini, I Cinque Album di Giacomo Quarenghi, Bergamo 1967, plates 70-76