Jakob Philipp Hackert

Presumably on the market in London or in an English private collection in the second quarter of the 19th Century, when relined by Francis Leedham in London;

Possibly with Kaufmann, London, according to a chalk inscription on the stretcher;

With Julius Böhler, Munich, 1966, from whom acquired in that year by the late father of the present owners. 

Munich, Galerie Julius Böhler, Gemälde alter Meister, Plastiken, Kunstgewerbe, June-September 1966, no. 14;

Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Heroismus und Idylle.  Formen der Landschaft um 1800 bei Jacob Philipp Hackert, Josef Anton Koch und Johann Christian Reinhart, 1984, no. 26.

H. Schrade, Deutsche Maler der Romantik, Cologne 1967, p. 50-51, reproduced;

E. Mai and G. Czymmek etc,  Heroismus und Idylle.  Formen der Landscahft um 1800 bei Jakob Philipp Hackert, Josef Anton Koch und Johann Christian Reinhart,  exhibition catalogue, Cologne 1984, no. 26, reproduced;

C. Nordhoff & H. Reimer, Jakob Philipp Hackert 1737-1807.  Verzeichnis seiner Werke, Berlin 1994, vol. II, p. 46, no. 112, reproduced vol. I, p. 130, reproduced no. 49. 

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: This painting appears to have had a rather calm background, with only minor traces of past intervention. The relining was apparently carried out by F.Leedham in London in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, whose name is engraved on the stretcher behind. There were already a few lost flakes along the upper stretcher bar line, presumably the reason for lining, but this has since preserved the overall structural condition perfectly intact. The craquelure is quite distinctive, but the texture is finely intact generally. There is one small recent knock or scratch by the extreme lower left edge, with some slightly loose flakes, but there is exceptionally little retouching overall. Under ultra violet light one or two minor little retouchings can be found in the sky as well as those along the upper stretcher bar line mentioned above and at the edge in the top left corner. There are three small retouchings in the lower right foreground and a few areas with minute strengthening touches in the foliage. Remarkably little intrusion over time in this beautifully intact painting. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

To judge from dated paintings, Hackert’s journey to Paestum and Sicily in the Spring of 1777 in the company of the Englishmen Richard Payne Knight and Charles Gore did not bear pictorial fruit until the following year, when he painted a number of views of sites in Sicily and the Lipari islands.  Thereafter he depicted Sicilian subjects sporadically.  This picture, whose date has been read as 1778 but may in fact be 1779, incorporates Sicilian motifs, as Nordhoff & Reimer and others have noted.¹ While the temple standing in the middle distance resembles most closely that of Poseidon at Paestum rather than any of the Sicilian Greek temples, the ruin to its left resembles the Temple of Juno Lacinia at Agrigento, while the distant smouldering volcano resembles Etna and is unlike Vesuvius.

The 4th Earl of Bristol may have seen this picture in Hackert’s studio on his third Italian journey in 1778 or 1779, because he commissioned another much larger version which Hackert painted in 1779.²  Nordhoff & Reimer speculate that Lord Bristol may not have taken possession of his commissions until his subsequent Italian journey in 1786.³  Both paintings subsequently hung at Ickworth.  Since the present work was clearly in England by the third or fourth decades of the 19^th Century, it is possible that Lord Bristol bought it from Hackert in 1778-9.  It appears however that Hackert’s paintings quite often remained in his workshop for several years before being sold, and any one of a number of English Milordi could have bought it, either when it was painted or in the 1780s. 

The evidence for this picture’s presence in England is the dry stamp on the stretcher of Francis Leedham.  Leedham was a picture liner and cleaner who was certainly active by 1831 when he had premises at 3 Little Edward St, Wardour St , London.⁴  From 1838 to 1840, he is recorded at 3 Duck Lane, and again at Edward St from 1839 to 1857, after which he probably retired to Portsea in Hampshire.  Two years later his business is recorded as in the hands of a successor.  Leedham was particularly active for Lord Northwick, and at the end of his career, in the 1850s, he worked for the National Gallery, where he was entrusted with the lining of at least fifteen of the National Gallery’s Turners.  While Lord Northwick was on an extended Grand Tour for ten years starting in 1790, spent a considerable amount of time in Rome and Naples, where he was said to have acted as an attaché to the ambassador to the King, and acquired works by contemporary artists as well as his avid pursuit of Old Masters, there is no evidence other than his subsequent patronage of Francis Leedham to connect him with this picture.   It seems likely however that the present painting was acquired from Hackert from an English collector.  It is unclear how long it remained in England, but the chalk inscription “[…] KAUFMANN” on the reverse may refer to the paintings dealer of that name active in London in the 1950s and 1960s.  Böhler, who sold the painting to the father of the present owner in 1966, had at that time close connections with the Alfred Brod Gallery in London. 

1.  See under Literature.
2.  Signed and dated Roma 1779, oil on canvas, 166.3 by 217.1 cm., in a private collection; see Nordhoff & Reimer, op. cit., vol. II, p. 54, no. 130, reproduced vol. I, p. 134, illustration no. 57.  Frederick Augustus Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol and later Bishop Earl of Bristol (1730-1803) was an inveterate Grand Tourist, visiting Italy no less than six times between 1765 and his death in 1803.
3.  Hackert painted another work for Lord Bristol, a river landscape dated Roma 1780, oil on canvas, 166 by 218 cm., private collection.; see Nordhoff & Reimer, op. cit., vol. II, p. 58, no. 139, reproduced vol. II, p. 137, illustration no. 63.  The pictures are of similar size, and may have been commissioned as pendants, although their compositions are not obviously complementary.
4.  Information from the National Portrait Gallery, London website.