MILAN, ITALY.-Sotheby’s Milan will auction the most appealing view of Piazza Navona in Rome, a masterwork painted by Ippolito Caffi. The auction will take place Tuesday, June 12, 2007, at 5.30pm. Piazza Navona, Rome is a magnificent oil on canvas of wide size; this iconic work by Ippolito Caffi boasts high pictorial quality as well as a great modern touch. It was painted in 1853 in Paris where the Italian artist was living into exile owing to his involvement in the 1848 revolutionary activity in Venice.

It is extraordinary how Caffi was able to represent in such a moving way a moment of life in one of the most famous Roman squares: he used a calotype realized by the painter-photographer Giacomo Caneva, who was among the founders in 1847 of one of the first photographers’ club, the so-called “Roman School of Photography” that had its usual meeting point at the Caffè Greco in Rome. This new photographic technique created in France had rapidly caught on in Rome, where the views of the city were already very popular, especially among tourists and pilgrims.

The brush-work is refine and unusual are his using of colour and light, it is not only a matter of portraying the architectures of the square but also the ladies quietly strolling, the flower girls and the pedlars of the market which was a real event, celebrated also by the famous Roman poet, Gioacchino Belli, in one of its sonnets devoted to this square.

This painting appears for the first time to the public after having been exhibited in 1959 at Palazzo delle Esposizioni of Rome on occasion of an exhibition devoted to the views by the artist.