- 169
Martinus Rorbye Drammen 1803-1848 Copenhagen
Description
- Martinus Rorbye
- The Porch of the Metropolitan Church in Palermo
- oil on canvas
Provenance
Private collection, Denmark;
Kunsthallen sale, Copenhagen, 1968, catalogue 280, no. 49 (44,000 Dkr.);
Private collection, Denmark, from whom purchased by Artemis Fine Arts.
Literature
D. Helsted, Martinus Rorbye, Exhibition catalogue, Thorvaldsen Museum, June 18 - September 30 1981, pp. 78-80 (the version at the the Tonder Museum is reproduced).
Catalogue Note
Martinus R¢rbye was one of the most important painters of the Danish Golden Age. He traveled more than any of his fellow Danish painters of the time, going as far south as Greece and Turkey, from which he returned via Italy in 1836. We know that the artist worked up many of the sketches he had made during his travels into finished paintings after his return to his native Denmark. This painting is most likely based on such a sketch.
Voss mentions four versions of this subject "varying little in size and quality" (see Literature). The first version is signed and dated 1840 and currently hangs in the Hirchsprung Art Gallery, Copenhagen. None of the three other versions are signed or dated but they are assumed to postdate the aforementioned painting; they include the picture belonging to the H¢vdingsgaard Estate, Fru. A. Dinesen; a third version is currently preserved in the S¢nderjyllands Kunstmuseum, T¢nder, and finally the present picture. Knud Voss writes that this subject is:
"the basis of a composition which is a noble figurative expression of the grand style in architecture as well as in the painter's conception. The substantial volume of the portico, the luminous solemnity of mood and the aristocratic atmosphere hardly have a completely corresponding counterpart in Danish pictorial art. We have to compare this picture with Venetian architectural painting of the 18th century or a Canaletto portico or loggia picture, to find anything adequate in content."