#410 • Landscape with Ruins

This work, which, with the ideal pendant, is placed in the " Falsario Room" crowning the Luzzetti collection, has been the subject of an articulate attributional dispute.

 

In the collection's catalog, the canvas was erroneously attributed to Bulgarian painter Kàrol Markò, who would be the author of the other Arcadian Landscape at Sunset in the same room.

 

The misunderstanding originated from the fact that the canvases were, at some point in their lives, interchanged in the frame that bore the attributive labels of "Maffei" and "Markò".

 

This confusion was resolved only when the works were allowed to be examined closely and when subsequent restorations brought out the signatures of the two artists.

 

Landscape with Ruderi is signed in the lower right corner with an explicit "Dario Maffei," dispelling any further doubt as to the true executing hand.

 

Maffei, moreover, exchanged for a long time with the other Sienese painter Alessandro, was a contemporary of Markò and shared his artistic path with him, marked by the creation of splendid views of the Umbrian-Tuscan countryside.