6070 - Catel, Franz Ludwig

Catel, Franz Ludwig Temple of Paestum with a View of the Campanian Landscape. Oil on paper, mounted on cardboard. 27.5 x 21.2 cm. Signed “Catel” indistinctly in wet paint in the lower right corner; below the image, another hand has inscribed “F. L. Catel” and “Paestum” on the left; later pencil annotation on the reverse. Circa 1838. In 1812, Catel accompanied the French archaeologist Aubin-Louis Millin (1759–1818) on his mission through Italy, during which Millin—commissioned by the French Ministry of the Interior—was tasked with compiling a comprehensive documentation of Italian cultural heritage for the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale between 1811 and 1813. Along with other, almost exclusively local artists, Catel was also commissioned for this project. Together they traveled to Naples, through Campania, the Abruzzo, and Calabria. Their visit to the temple ruins in Paestum was captured in several drawings. The drawing “The Temple of Poseidon and the Heraion at Paestum, Province of Salerno, Campania” (1812, pen and brush in brown over pencil, highlighted in white, 56.7 x 87 cm) is housed at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (Département Estampes et Photographie, cat. no. 54). Around 1838, Catel returned to the motif of the ruins of Paestum and produced a series of views, including a larger oil painting for Prince Malte von Putbus (“The Ruins of the Temples of Paestum with a View of the Campanella Promontory,” 1838, oil on canvas, 95.5 x 137 cm, Southern Italy Collection). Another, smaller work, which bears similarities to the present view in both composition and technique, is housed in the Casa di Goethe (“Paestum. View Past a Temple Facade into the Surrounding Countryside,” c. 1841/42?, oil on paper, 32 x 22.4 cm, Inv. No. IV 7-10; cf. Claudia Nordhoff, Casa di Goethe. Inventory Catalog, Casa di Goethe, Rome 2017). We thank Dr. Andreas Stolzenburg, Hamburg, for valuable insights and his confirmation of Catel’s authorship based on the original and a digital image (email dated September 18, 2026). - Please request condition reports for the lots, as the condition is only indicated in the catalog in exceptional cases. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog.