Lot 62: LUDWIG LANGE

LUDWIG LANGE GERMAN 1808 - 1868 THE HARBOUR OF PIRAEUS signed lower right watercolour, gouache and pen and ink on paper 44.5 by 116cm., 17½ by 45¾in.

In this sweeping panorama, viewed from the north of the inlet, Lange uses graceful lines and fine detail to capture the landscape around Piraeus, with the Hymettus mountain range dominating the composition. Greece's ancient past - a central concern to Romantic painters - is in full view, with the ruins of the harbour defences foregrounded in the composition and picked out by the warm sunlight. To the left of the composition, and beyond Athens, lies the Acropolis silhouetted in the distance, while to the right lie Mounichia and the Phaleron bay.

Ludwig Lange was a painter and architect. Although he was born and died in Germany, he accompanied his painting tutor Carl Rottmann (1798-1852) on a visit to Athens in 1834, and was for three years a drawing teacher there. He was the elder brother of Julius Lange, with whom he worked on a series of works titled Views of the Principal Towns of Germany. The present work is testament both to his skill as a draughtsman, and to his deep attachment to Greece and its landscape.