HENDRIK FRANS VAN LINT (Antwerp, 1684 - Rome, 1763) Ideal Landscape Signed and dated on the tree on the right: Studio. f. Rome 174... Oil on panel, 76X60 cm Provenance: Genoa, private collection Of unequivocal Italianising taste and inspired by the courtly models of Claude Lorrain, the canvas evokes a landscape of the Lazio countryside. The perspective cut and character suggest the ideal foundation of the view, while the analysis of the painted surface indicates a fully 18th century date. These aspects, combined with the stylistic features, lead to a comparison with the mature production of Hendrik Frans van Lint, in our case supported by the signature and date. The similar compositions published by Busiri Vici are also helpful, and here we would like to mention: the painting reported by Federico Zeri in a private English collection from the Colnaghi Gallery and the Landscape with Figures attributed to Pompeo Batoni. Van Lint was one of the main protagonists of Roman landscape painting during the first half of the 18th century. A native of Antwerp, he settled in the Eternal City in 1700, where he frequented Gaspar van Wittel's workshop. Another artist Lint looked up to with profound admiration was Claude Lorrain. His ideal views cloaked in soft light, whose meticulous technique required drawings often executed from life, were indeed indispensable to those wishing to depict the classicist aesthetics of the Roman Ager. It is not surprising then that Lint's creations were enthusiastically collected by both the aristocratic travellers on the Grand Tour and the great patrician families such as the Altoviti, the Pamphili and the Sacchetti. Don Lorenzo Colonna, for example, counted no less than seventy landscapes in his collection. The artist's representative variety was also surprising, as he rarely replicated his works, which were the result of repeated days out of town. Thus, our canvas stands out for its exquisite visuals, captured with a careful spirit of observation and executed according to a quality that met with the favour of collectors, eager to possess a vivid and spontaneous memory of the peninsula's scenic wonders. And it is precisely in the works from Lazio that the painter reached his fullest maturity, capable of capturing natural reality in its crystalline and diffuse luminosity. Reference bibliography: A. Busiri Vici, Peter, Hendrik and Giacomo van Lint : three Antwerp painters of the 17th and 18th centuries working in Rome, Rome 1987, ad vocem L. Salerno, Pittori di vedute in Italia, Rome 1991, pp. 117-119 L. Bortolotti, Hendrik Frans Van Lint, in La pittura di paesaggio in Italia. Il Settecento, edited by A. Ottani Cavina and E. Calbi, Milan 2005, pp. 242-244