Vizcaya’s patron, James Deering, purchased a small painting from the Anglo-Florentine art dealer and collector, Arthur Acton (1873–1953) in 1914, which would decorate the guest bedroom known as Lady Hamilton, located in the North Tower. This oval-shaped painting shows two young women among architectural ruins engaged in conversation before one monumental marble vase that predominates the composition. Since Vizcaya opened as a public museum, the painting was relocated to the bottom of the North Tower’s staircase for visitor enjoyment. It has now been recently restored and reinstalled at the landing of the North Tower staircase in the Gallery of the Main House.
In the 1700s, depictions of architecture from classical antiquity, often set in imaginative landscapes and among Roman ruins, gained considerable popularity. Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691-1765), a renowned painter of such views, known as vedute, in eighteenth-century Rome, was originally credited as the artist of Vizcaya’s painting when it was purchased.
While Vizcaya’s painting doesn’t bear any signature, Panini’s influence is apparent in its composition. The large vase with dancing figures is a recurring motif in Panini’s works, and a similar seated female figure can be found in other paintings by him. For example, Panini’s Ruins with the Vase of Dancers and Figures (1753?) bears a resemblance to Vizcaya’s composition, with a large vase on the left and a seated woman on the right.
Vizcaya’s painting retains a sketch-like quality due to its loose brushstrokes, whereas another version of the painting, housed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, exhibits a more finished appearance.
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