Lot 244: JAKOB PHILIPP HACKERT

THE PROPERTY OF A LADY PRENZLAU 1737 - 1807 FLORENCE A VIEW ACROSS THE ALBAN HILLS, WITH A HILLTOP ON THE RIGHT AND THE SEA IN THE FAR DISTANCE signed, dated and located lower centre: J.Ph: Hackert .f á albane 1772 oil on copper, oval 32 by 42.5 cm.; 12½ by 16¾ in.

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

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.