Template:POTD/2019-08-20
Modern Rome is a name given to each of three almost identical oil-on-canvas paintings by Italian artist Giovanni Paolo Panini, originally produced as pendant paintings to Ancient Rome for his patron, the comte de Stainville, who was the French ambassador to Rome from 1753 to 1757. The first two versions of the painting were created for Stainville in 1757, while the third was painted a couple of years later for Claude-François de Montboissier de Canillac de Beaufort.
This picture is the second version of Modern Rome, part of the collection of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The work shows a picture gallery with a large number of paintings and sculptures depicting contemporary buildings and monuments in Rome, including St. Peter's Square, the Trevi Fountain, Santa Maria Maggiore, Piazza Navona, Michelangelo's Moses and a Medici lion. Stainville is depicted in an armchair in the left of the gallery. The first version of the painting is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, while the third is in the Louvre in Paris.Painting credit: Giovanni Paolo Panini