Palazzo Barberini, Rome

Carroll Beckwith, born Hannibal, MO 1852-died New York City 1917 · ca. 1910

The imposing building in this painting was the home of the Barberinis, a wealthy family who held political and religious offices in Rome in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1910, Carroll Beckwith lived in Rome, where he captured in his paintings the effects of light on the landscape. Beckwith believed in the importance of studying the art of the past and felt that modernism was “doing untold injury to . . . the art training of the youth of America.” (Franchi and Weber, Intimate Revelations: The Art of Carroll Beckwith (1852-1917), 1999)