Jacob Philipp Hackert - View of Aci Castello
Jacob Philipp Hackert
View of Aci Castello
Gouache. 34 x 48 cm.
Framed under glass.
Signed and dated lower right: Castel d'Aci au pied dell'Etna / Ph. Hackert f. 1781.
The picture shows a view of the small village of Aci Castello at the foot of Mount Etna in Sicily. Hackert had travelled to Sicily in 1777 together with two English fellow travellers, Charles Gore and Richard Payne Knight. At the time, Sicily was not yet a major travel destination; the so-called "Grand Tour" of travellers to Italy ended in Naples and the coast of Amalfi. After the "discovery" of Sicily by Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the Hessian baron Johann Hermann von Riedesel also travelled to the island in 1767 and subsequently published a small travel guide.
This process of cultural exploration of Sicily also included Hackert's journey of 1777, the purpose of which was to publish an illustrated travel guide: Hackert and Charles Gore produced drawings, while Richard Payne Knight kept a travel diary. The project failed in the end, probably mainly because the first volume of the Abbé de Saint-Non's great work "Voyage pittoresque ou Description des royaumes de Naples et de Sicile" was published in 1781. This was the first time that the principle of juxtaposing text and image, which Richard Payne Knight had envisaged, was realised.
24 dated and five undated drawings from Hackert's journey to Sicily have survived (Nordhoff / Reimer , nos. 709 - 732, 1009, 1010, 1207-1209). Back in Rome, he produced various paintings in the following years and an undated series of etchings with twelve views, probably made in 1786, entitled "Vues de la Sicile" (quoted from the certifcate by C. Nordhoff 1996).
Certificate
Dr Claudia Nordhoff, Rome, 22.5.1995.
Provenance
Delorme. Fraisse, Paris 11 April 1996, lot 11. - Rhenish private collection.
Jacob Philipp Hackert
View of Aci Castello
Gouache. 34 x 48 cm.
Framed under glass.
Signed and dated lower right: Castel d'Aci au pied dell'Etna / Ph. Hackert f. 1781.
The picture shows a view of the small village of Aci Castello at the foot of Mount Etna in Sicily. Hackert had travelled to Sicily in 1777 together with two English fellow travellers, Charles Gore and Richard Payne Knight. At the time, Sicily was not yet a major travel destination; the so-called "Grand Tour" of travellers to Italy ended in Naples and the coast of Amalfi. After the "discovery" of Sicily by Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the Hessian baron Johann Hermann von Riedesel also travelled to the island in 1767 and subsequently published a small travel guide.
This process of cultural exploration of Sicily also included Hackert's journey of 1777, the purpose of which was to publish an illustrated travel guide: Hackert and Charles Gore produced drawings, while Richard Payne Knight kept a travel diary. The project failed in the end, probably mainly because the first volume of the Abbé de Saint-Non's great work "Voyage pittoresque ou Description des royaumes de Naples et de Sicile" was published in 1781. This was the first time that the principle of juxtaposing text and image, which Richard Payne Knight had envisaged, was realised.
24 dated and five undated drawings from Hackert's journey to Sicily have survived (Nordhoff / Reimer , nos. 709 - 732, 1009, 1010, 1207-1209). Back in Rome, he produced various paintings in the following years and an undated series of etchings with twelve views, probably made in 1786, entitled "Vues de la Sicile" (quoted from the certifcate by C. Nordhoff 1996).
Certificate
Dr Claudia Nordhoff, Rome, 22.5.1995.
Provenance
Delorme. Fraisse, Paris 11 April 1996, lot 11. - Rhenish private collection.
