Jakob Philipp Hackert

Jakob Philipp Hackert was one of the great German landscape painters of the 18th Century.  From early in his career he acquired a reputation for his precise and carefully detailed drawings.  After his arrival in Rome in 1768 the artist started to explore the surroundings and picturesque locations outside the city, using them as subjects for many drawings and paintings.  In 1786 Hackert became court painter to the King of Naples, Ferdinand IV.  The terms of his contract allowed him three months a year for himself, so he could travel outside Naples and find inspiration for his paintings in other locations.

This picturesque view certainly appealed to Hackert as ten years prior to executing the present sheet he depicted the Grotto in Tivoli in a watercolour signed and dated 1771, now in the Apolloni Collection, Rome (fig. 1).¹  Another drawing by Hackert depicting the Grotto of Neptune, from a slightly different angle, was sold at Christie's in 1986.²

^1. Il Paesaggio secondo Natura: Jacob Philipp Hackert e la sua Cerchia, exhib. cat., Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, 1994, no. 146

^2. Sale, London, Christie's, 1 July 1986, lot 17