Lot number 4200 - Auction 137
BEI SESSA AURUNCA - CASCADE ET FONTAINE

JAKOB PHILIPP HACKERT 1737 Prenzlau - 1807 San Piero di Careggio (Florence) AT SESSA AURUNCA - CASCADE ET FONTAINE Pen and brush and brown ink, some light washes on beige paper. 557 x 683 mm (visible dimensions), 750 x 870 mm frame dimensions (original sheet dimensions 563 x 690 mm Nordhoff). Signed, dated and inscribed lower centre: 'a Sessa 1794 Filippo Hackert del.'. Verso: inscribed on old paper label of Dom Galerie Ed. Arthur Schmidt Cologne: 'Jacob Philipp Hackert (1737-1807) Original-Sepia-Aquarell Nr. 2132'. With collection number '699' on the cardboard on the reverse. Margins minimally browned (insignificant). Framed in passepartout and behind glass. 'In his official capacity as court painter, Hackert had spent April 1794 with the King, the Queen and General Acton in S. Maria della Piana - in the immediate vicinity of Sessa Aurun-ca - where infantry and cavalry were assembled for a gigantic military display. However, although the painter must have been busy studying for the painting in Caserta (see the undated sketch cat. no. 1061), he found enough time for excursions into the immediate surroundings, which were already familiar to him from his travels in 1792. From Sessa, which lies on a hill of the extinct volcano of Roccamonfina - the Monte S.Croce - Hackert hiked to the Monti Aurun-ci ...' (Cf. Nordhoff op. cit., p. 357). Literature: Nordhoff, Claudia and Hans Reimer: Jakob Philipp Hackert 1737-1807. Verzeichnis seiner Werke. Volume II, p. 358, no. 876. Provenance:Bergische company collection. Previously possibly Dom Galerie Ed. Arthur Schmidt Cologne. Auction catalogue no. L, Dessin anciens et modernes, Gutekunst & Klipstein, Bern, 21-22 June 1949, no. 615.