The Marriage at Cana in an Imaginary Architectural Setting
after Giovanni Paolo Panini (Piacanza c.1692 - Rome 1765)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1700 - 1799
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
972 x 1346 mm (38 1/4 x 53 in)
Place of origin
Rome
Order this imageCollection
Stourhead, Wiltshire
NT 732087
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, The Marriage at Cana in an Imaginary Architectural Setting, after Giovanni Paolo Panini (Piacenza c.1692 – Rome 1765), 18th century. A celebration is taking place on a table at the far right of a large open space surrounded by a lofty classical colonnade. The table and wedding guests are dwarfed by the huge arches, surmounted by pairs of ornate composite columns, which lead at the centre through to the steps and colonnades of a larger palace. Christ can be identified in red at the centre of the table, his right arm outstretched. He gestures towards a second table covered in a white cloth on the left. Bottles are arranged against the wall in the left foreground and the floor of the room is laid with large, geometric tiles. The biblical account of the wedding feast, where Christ performed his first miracle of turning water into wine, is related in the New Testament, John 2:1-11. This picture is a copy of an original in the J. B. Speed Museum, Louisville.
Provenance
Probably brought from Wavendon by Sir Henry Hugh Arthur Hoare 6th Bt (1865 - 1947) and Alda Weston, Lady Hoare (d. 1947) between 1894 and 1898; given to the National Trust along with the house, its grounds, and the rest of contents by Sir Henry Hugh Arthur Hoare, 6th Bt (1865 – 1947) in 1946.
Credit line
Stourhead, The Hoare Collection (National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
Verso: In white paint on back of frame : 493
Makers and roles
after Giovanni Paolo Panini (Piacanza c.1692 - Rome 1765) , artist previously catalogued as attributed to Francis Harding (fl. c.1730 – 1760), artist
References
Arisi 1986: Ferdinando Arisi, Gian Paolo Panini e i fasti della Roma del ’700, Rome 1986, 123 x 160 cm, is in the J.B. Speed Museum, Louisville (ex-Marcello Guidi, Florence; possibly Vente de l'Elisee in 1897; Avisi, G.P.P., 1986, Catalogue No. 170, p.312 & details pls.107 and 108), dated by Arisi to c.1725-30.