Jakob Philipp Hackert

With Gebruder Schöninger, Munich (according to an old label on the reverse);
Inherited by the present owner from her aunt in 2002.

The original paint surface is beautifully preserved. There is just a tiny area of instability in the surface of the rock lower right, and a paint loss in the lwer left, right on thre margin. There are some areas of the sky where the thin layer of surface dirt has been wiped away so that, currently, the sky looks a little uneven, but with a simple wipe with a soft cloth this would be immediately rectified and would imbue the painting with an even greater sense of atmosphere. Offered with an 18th century English gilt wood frame, in good condition.
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This view looks over the Alban hills and depicts a hilltop town to the right and the sea in the far distance.  The Alban hills lie just outside Rome to the south-east of the city.

This is a relatively early work from Hackert’s Italian sojourn.  He first arrived in Rome, from Paris, in 1768.  During these early years he made a number of sketching trips out into the countryside and these drawings were to provide a source for his vedute throughout his career. Often his paintings were made many years after his drawings and record views he hadn’t seen for decades.  This is not the case with the present work which was clearly painted in direct response to one of these sketching trips, although no known related drawing survives. As a result, this small copper has a spontaneity and almost sketch-like quality one does not normally associate with Hackert's later Italian views.

A number of Hackert’s sketches of the Alban hills in 1772 survive, including a dated gouache Wooded Landscape. ¹


1. C. Nordhoff and H. Reimer, Jakob Philipp Hacket. 1737-1807, Berlin 1994, vol. I, p. 28, no. 71 and pp. 269-271, nos. 651-654, vol. II, p.119, fig. 27 and pp. 254-255, figs. 302-4.