PIETRO MONTANINI (Perugia, 1626 - 1689) Landscape with figures Oil on canvas, 94X61 cm Provenance: Vienna, Dorotheum, 14 September 1965, lot 75 (as Pietro Montanini) Rome, Tito Gobbi Collection Pietro Montanini trained with Pietro da Cortona, except for an initial apprenticeship in Perugia with his uncle Giovanni Francesco Bassotti, who was oriented towards the manner of the Roman classicist painting of Guido Reni, Francesco Albani and Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (cf. L. Pascoli, Vite de' pittori, scultori ed architetti perugini, Roma 1732, pp. 214-221). The artist, therefore, initially dedicated himself to history painting with excellent quality results, also trying his hand at fresco painting. The studies conducted by Mancini, in fact, list quite a few of his public works carried out in Perugia, where he returned in 1658, but during his stay in Rome, Pascoli indicates that he was much appreciated by Roman collectors for his meticulousness and punctuality, so much so that 'leading figures gave him continuous commissions for the paintings they needed to decorate their galleries'. Thus, the activity as a landscape painter by which he is now best known was a secondary aspect of his career and took over thanks to his meeting with Salvator Rosa 'whose manner he imitated afterwards to marvell and became excellent'. The physiognomy of Montanini as a landscape painter is owed to Federico Zeri (1954, p. 121; 1959, pp. 184), who first restored to him the two seascapes in the Pallavicini Gallery and the two small battles in the Spada Gallery in Rome, generically attributed to Salvator Rosa's school. Reference Bibliography F. Zeri, La galleria Spada in Roma. Catalogo dei dipinti, Florence 1954, p. 121 nn. 217-219 F. Zeri, La galleria Pallavicini, Florence 1959, p. 184 f. nn. 315-316 F.F. Mancini, Figure e paesi di Pietro Montanini, in Esercizi, arte, musica, spettacolo, I (1978), pp. 113-160 F. F. Mancini, Aggiunte a Pietro Montanini, in Antichità viva, XXI (1982), 1, pp. 23-29 L. Barroero, Pittura del '600 e '700. Ricerche in Umbria, II, Treviso 1980, pp. 77, 445 boards 498-502 G. Sapori, in La pittura in Italia. Il Seicento, edited by M. Gregori, II, Milan 1989, p. 821