Italian Landscape with Umbrella Pines

Hendrik Voogd signed this canvas in Rome in 1807, and the place is the gardens of the Villa Borghese, with the Villa Giulia and the hill of Monte Mario in the distance. That same year Prince Camillo Borghese, married to Napoleon's sister Pauline, agreed to sell hundreds of ancient statues from the family collection to his brother-in-law, and they were taken to Paris. None of that shows in the picture. It is late afternoon, the sun is low behind the umbrella pines, and their tall trunks throw long shadows across the grass toward us. People stroll and stop in the slanting light, and in the foreground an artist sits against a tree, drawing. The Rijksmuseum bought the canvas at an auction in Vienna in 1976.