Watermark: none visible through lining.
Landscape studies such as this have been associated with Nicolas Vleughels, the Director of the Académie de France in Rome from 1724 until his death in 1737. He deplored the lack of landscape painters and took his pensionnaires on walking tours in the campagna of Rome, to Frascati and Tivoli. Both he and his students produced views of the architecture and landscape of and around these sites. Very few, however, are accepted as the work of Vleughels, and the majority of such drawings are by unidentified pupils of his at the French Academy. The various inscriptions on the verso of the mount indicate that it was once considered a view by Luigi Vanvitelli (1700-1773).
Inscribed on mount, "Vanvitelli"; on verso of mount, initials or paraph at upper left; erased inscription followed by "Tav. CLXVII" and "Luigi Vanvitelli / Tav. CXCIX"; numbered "131", "Aventine seen from the Tiber / Porta San [illegible] Rome forum" followed by an illegible inscription.
Seligman, Ethylene, former owner.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Twentieth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1981-1983. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1984, p. 313.
Denison, Cara D. French Drawings, 1550-1825. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1984, no. 33.