Prospectus Castri e Ponti S. Angeli

Etching, printed on laid paper, trimmed to platemark, in excellent condition. Example of the third state, with Carlo Losi imprint.

Cruyl starter drawing and engraving views when he moved to Rome around 1664. His first works were his twenty one drawings, once kept in the Albertina in Vienna and nowadays divided between the Cleveland Museum and Rijksmuseum.

The drawings actually are the counterpart of the subjects they depict for they were meant to be used for the realization of engravings.

Only ten of these subjects have actually been engraved by Cruyl and published for the first time in 1666 by Giovan Battista de Rossi in a volume dedicated to Pope Alexander VII, entitled Prospectus loco rum Urbis Romae Insignis; the collection was afterwards reissued by Matteo Gregorio de Rossi between 1692 and 1698. Cruyl characterized every single view by adding some figures which perfectly adhered to the urban context and, at the same time, he describes and defines the monuments of the city of Pope Alexander. To realized his aim, the artist changed the real perspective and modified the urban space.

Lievin Cruyl (1640-1720) Flemish draughtsman of perspective views, originally from Ghent, moved to Rome in 1644. Together with Giovan Battista Falda and Israel Silvestre, he was one of the renewers of Roman views in the 17th century. Although he was influenced by the 16th century conception of the role of antiquity in the image of Rome, he represented the urban architectural innovations of the Rome of Alexander VII (Fabio Chigi 1655- 1667), characterising his views with small genre scenes in the Flemish tradition. In the representation of urban space, Cruyl alters perspective, raising the viewpoint and dilating the field of vision, using the most advanced optical techniques of the time. 

Bibliografia

B. Jatta, Lievin Cruyl e la sua opera grafica, pp. 53/9.