EUGENE VON GUERARD

Purchased in Germany by the present owner's grandfather; thence by descent
Private collection, Germany

This work has a new stretcher but has not been lined. Three very minor re-touchings on far left hand side hillside slope. Crazing throughout sky area and along upper edge appears some rubbing from the frame rebate. This work is in overall excellent original condition.
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Sketchbooks used in Italy and Germany, 1835-1852, ink, pencil and wash drawings, 14.5 x 9.5 cm - 14 x 24 cm, DGB14, vols.2 & 3, various folios, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

From 1832 von Guerard lived in Naples where his father Bernhard was employed as an artist at the court of Ferdinand II, the King of the Two Sicilies. After Bernhard's death from cholera in 1836, von Guerard stayed on in Naples and then in May 1838 set out for Dûsseldorf, Germany, via northern Italy.

As he was to do throughout his life, von Guerard recorded his trip in small pocket sketchbooks, noting places and dates in the same meticulous fashion as he went. Setting off around 21 May 1838, he travelled north from Naples through the Southern Apennines (sometimes called the Volscian Mountains) following the Valle Roveto of the Liri River. He seems to have spent several days (26 to 28 May 1838) in and around the small town of Sora, where he made many sketches of the surrounding topography and buildings, although it was the distinctive costume of the local women that especially caught his eye, and he completed dozens of small sketches in these two days. Of particular significance is the figure of the woman at the well on the left hand side of the canvas. The artist depicts her wearing the local head dress, a tovaglia (literally, a tablecloth) which is still particularly renowned in this part of Italy. Made from starched white linen, the tovaglia was flat on top and folded to form a type of large squared scarf at the back.  It was designed to protect the head and back of the neck from the sun it and served as a firm base on which the women could balance their baskets and pottery urns. The men, in their tall, funnel-shaped felt hats and knee breeches, were also observed by the artist in his sketches, and included in the canvas in two separate groups and though the figures are reduced to mere staffage in the final canvas, they specifically relate to these sketches.

The topography shown in the painting, however, appears not to be the landscape near Sora but that of the country further north near Spoleto and Terni through which von Guerard passed on 14 and 15 July after leaving Rome. He drew several sketches of the river snaking its way through the valley which he combined with the dramatic placement of the walled town in the centre of the canvas. There were many ancient ruins in Spoleto but it was the imposing Albornozian castle with its solid Romanesque towers that especially interested von Guerard, though in the final canvas this has been much reduced from his drawings of the same. The Roman aquaduct that appears in his drawing of Spoleto was not included in the final painting.
 
The canvas was painted in 1847 almost a decade after this trip and came at the end of von Guerard's studies at the distinguished Dusseldorf Academy, then under the Directorship of Wilhelm von Schadow who had established one of the first academic landscape classes with J.W. Schirmer. The Academy attracted students from all over the world and would later reach some fame as the school at which many of the American Hudson River School artists received their training. Painting was at that time moving from the rigid formalism of history painting - in which the human figure and a strong classical narrative dominated  - towards a more naturalistic landscape style associated with the Romantic movement. Schirmer was one of the first teachers of his day to take students out of the studio (and away from drawing plaster casts) on sketching trips in the surrounding countryside, an innovation that was quite revolutionary at the time. Von Guerard was accustomed to taking similar sketching trips with his father in Italy and adopted this practice with Schirmer's encouragement when he moved to Germany. A careful observation of the natural world and a belief that God's hand was in all natural phenomena were two of Romanticism's guiding principles, both of which were enthusiastically embraced by the artist.

As he would demonstrate later in many of his Australian paintings, von Guerard was a master of composition, balancing all the elements of the canvas in a satisfying whole. From the detailed scene of figures, rocks and foliage in the foreground, a long serpentine line - one of his favourite devices - leads the eye slowly along the valley floor to the snow-capped peak and sky at the top of the canvas. Through a tight control of tone and shading the viewer begins on the left with the woman at the well (who is so brightly lit she almost appears to be in a spotlight) following the sunlit path to the river bend, glancing here and there at the men resting with their guns, or walking on the trail, at the grove of trees and other picturesque details, until we come to the centre of the canvas and we ascend, in planes, to the very top. The changing colours of the palette - from the vivid greens of olive trees and grass to the warmer pinks and mauves of the distant mountains - further emphasise the subtle shift from detailed foreground to abstracted distance. The scene is an idealised one of dreamy pastoral life where all is calm and serene, where no one toils and where the sun always shines.

We are most grateful to Dr Candice Bruce for her assistance in cataloguing this work.