Carl Spitzweg
Carl Spitzweg (1808 - Munich - 1885) - Southern Landscape.
Oil on metal. (c. 1870). 24.7 x 29.5 cm. Framed.
Roennefahrt 604; Wichmann 642.
Shortly after Carl Spitzweg had passed his examination as a practical pharmacist on April 4, 1832, he set off on an extended trip to Italy. On the 28th of the same month, coming from Trieste, where he had visited his brother who was ill, he stopped off in Venice. His journey then took him to Padua, Bologna and Florence. On May 26, he reached Rome, where he continued to fill his sketchbooks, including meticulous studies of Castel Sant'Angelo, the Arch of Constantine and the Roman Forum, before continuing south to Naples. In retrospect, this second trip through Italy was groundbreaking in that it encouraged Spitzweg, who had grown tired of pills and ointments, to devote himself entirely to painting and the art of drawing. In his late work, Spitzweg returned to the journey he had undertaken almost 40 years earlier with several pictures depicting hilly landscapes surrounded by pine groves. Several pencil studies from his sketchbook of 1832 can be attributed specifically to the present landscape.
Literature:
Günther Roennefahrt, Carl Spitzweg. Beschreibendes Verzeichnis seiner Gemälde, Ölstudien und Aquarelle, Munich 1960, p. 196, cat. no. 604, with illus;
Siegfried Wichmann, Spitzweg. Begegnungen mit Moritz von Schwind und Arnold Böcklin in die kleine Landschaft, Haus der Kunst. Munich 1985, p. 129, cat. no. 88, with illus;
Siegfried Wichmann, Carl Spitzweg. Verzeichnis der Werke, Stuttgart 2002, p. 310, cat. no. 642, with col. illus.
Exhibition:
Viennese Biedermeier painters and Carl Spitzweg, Lucerne Art Museum, 1950, cat. no. 356;
Exhibition Carl Spitzweg. Zur 150. Wiederkehr seines Geburtsstages am 5. Febr. 1958, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich 1958, p. 35, cat. no. 54 (titled "Gebirgslandschaft").
Provenance:
Collection of the Princes of Liechtenstein (inv. no. 2147), numbered "27" on old label on verso and with the address;
Georg Schäfer Collection, Schweinfurt (inv. no. 2327), with the label on the reverse of the frame;
Private collection, Southern Germany.
Taxation: differential taxation (VAT: Margin Scheme)
