Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg Danish, 1783-1853

Mr Wanscher (by 1847)
Rud Tvermoes (by 1898)
Holger Hirschsprung (sale: Winkel & Magnussen, Copenhagen, 10 June 1942, lot 4)
Hans Lystrup (acquired at the above sale); thence by descent to the present owner

Emil Hannover, C. W. Eckersberg: En Studie i Dansk Kunsthistorie, Copenhagen, 1898, p. 338, no. 190, catalogued
Knud Voss, Guldalderens Malerkunst - Dansk arkitekturmaleri 1800-1850, Copenhagen, 1968, p. 120, fig. 62, illustrated
Kasper Monrad, Hverdagsbilleder. Dansk Guldalder - kunsterne og deres vilkår, Copenhagen, 1989, p. 190, fig. 180, illustrated
Michael Hornung and Kasper Monrad, C.W. Eckersberg - dansk malerkunsts fader, Copenhagen, 2005,  p. 141, illustrated

Painted between 1814 and 1816.

Eckersberg’s Roman views are among the most treasured works in Danish art. They were executed during his stay in Rome 1813-1816, and they founded the basis of Danish painting for the next three decades, the so-called Golden Age of Danish Painting. With their firm composition and precisely observed details they defined the artistic principles that Eckersberg’s many pupils at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen would follow in the subsequent years.

Most of Eckersberg’s Roman views have long ago been acquired by museums, first and foremost in Copenhagen, but also in Stockholm, London and Washington, D.C. The view of the so-called Temple of Vesta in Rome is one of the very rare exceptions that is still in private hands. It was executed after Eckersberg had started to work outdoors in front of the motif in spring 1814. Like many of his European colleagues the Danish painter introduced a new working method when he began to paint in the open air. After he had made a detailed compositional drawing of the subject on the spot, he would transfer the subject to the canvas in the studio, where he also did the priming and applied the basic paint. Then he returned to the motif and finished the painting. In this way he was able to study the weather conditions and the light while still working in front of the subject. A much fresher observation was the result of his new efforts.

The so-called Temple of Vesta, built in the second century B.C. and dedicated to Hercules, was a popular motif among painters in the early nineteenth century (see fig. 1). The circular portico had twenty slender fluted columns with Corinthian capitals, nineteen of which survive. The precise rendering of the sunlight makes it probable that Eckersberg painted it outdoors from the square in front of the temple, between 1814 and 1816.

Fig. 1, Constantin Hansen, The Temple of Vesta, Rome, 1837, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen