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  • "VILLA / ALDOBRAN / DINA / TVSCVLANA / sine varij / . . . "
    Type: inscription
    Location: on tablet in composition
    Materials: graphite
  • "The Villa Aldobrandina, belonging to the Pamfili family, is near the church of St. Dominico on Monte Quirnale"
    Type: inscription
    Location: mount
    Materials: graphite
  • James Bowdoin III( Collector, Boston) - 1811.
  • Bowdoin College Museum of Art( Museum, Brunswick, Maine) 1811- . Bequest
  • Images of Women in 17th Century Prints and Drawings
    • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 10/3/1989 - 11/5/1989)
  • Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College
    • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 5/17/1985 - 7/7/1985)
    • Clark Art Institute. ( 9/14/1985 - 10/27/1985)
    • University of Kansas. ( 1/19/1986 - 3/2/1986)
    • Art Gallery of Ontario. ( 5/17/1986 - 6/29/1986)
  • From Fontainebleau to the Louvre: French Drawing from the Seventeenth Century
    • Cleveland Museum of Art. ( 12/13/1989 - 1/28/1990)
    • Harvard University Art Museums. ( 2/24/1990 - 4/8/1990)
    • National Gallery of Canada. ( 5/6/1990 - 6/17/1990)
  • Drawing on Basics
    • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 10/14/1993 - 12/19/1993)
  • Prints/Drawings & Drawings/Prints, 1500-1800
    • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 8/4/2009 - 9/20/2009) 
Type: catalogue
Author: Henry Johnson
Document Title: Catalogue of the Bowdoin College Art Collections
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Reference: no. 96
Remarks: (as Unknown)
Section Title: Pt. I, The Bowdoin Drawings
Date: 1885

Type: catalogue
Author: Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Document Title: Bowdoin Museum of Fine Arts, Walker Art Building
Edition: 4th
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Reference: no. 96
Remarks: (as Unknown)
Publisher: Bowdoin College
Section Title: Descriptive Catalogue of the . . .
Date: 1930

Type: exhibition catalogue
Author: David P. Becker
Document Title: Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Location: pp. 186-187
Reference: no. 87 (illus.)
Publisher: Bowdoin College
Date: 1985

Type: exhibition catalogue
Author: Hilliard T. Goldfarb
Document Title: From Fontainebleau to the Louvre
Publ. Place: Cleveland
Location: p. 89
Reference: no. 42
Publisher: Cleveland Museum of Art
Section Title: French Drawing from the Seventeenth Century
Date: 1989

This drawing was designed as the title page to a set of views of the Villa Aldobrandini (fig. 1) at Frascati, in the Roman Campagna, or countryside, southeast of the city. The estate had passed to the Pamphili family through marriage in 1647, and the set of views was likely commissioned to celebrate the new ownership. The book is etched, with engraved additions, and consists of a title page, a dedication, a preface, eight plates of views of the villa and its famous gardens, ten plates reproducing the celebrated fresco cycle by Domenichino (1581–1641) in the villa, and a final plan of the villa and its surroundings (Robert-Dumesnil, 70–76). The book is dedicated to the young King Louis XIV of France (then nine years old), whose engraved portrait appears on the printed title within a laurel wreath, which is blank in the drawing. The printed title is in reverse of the finished preparatory drawing, indicating that Dominique Barrière used the Bowdoin sheet as the final model. He signed the plate as designer, draftsman, and etcher.

In this design, an allegorical figure of Painting, with materials at her feet, sits in a section of the villa’s garden surrounded by classical sculpture and three fountains. The arrangement roughly corresponds to the large nymphaeum, or artificial grotto and fountains, within the villa’s garden. The title of the volume is engraved on the tablet held by Painting. The major changes from drawing to print are the addition of classical figures on the large vase at the left and a scene of Hercules in combat with an animal in the tablet under Painting's outstretched arm. For the final print Barrière also removed the swan wooing Leda in the sculpture in the far garden wall.

David P. Becker (edited by Sarah Cantor)

References:

Robert-Dumesnil, A. P. F. Le peintre-graveur français, ou Catalogue raisonné des estampes gravées par les peintres et les dessinateurs de l'école française. Vol. 3. Paris: Gabriel Warée, 1838.

Images:

Fig. 1: Domenic Barrière Title Page of Views of the Villa Aldobrandini, 1647, etching http://search.getty.edu/gri/records/griobject?objectid=2710813509

Commentary credited to David P. Becker (or not otherwise captioned) appeared in his catalogue Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College (Brunswick: Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 1985).