KARL BLECHEN | BERGLANDSCHAFT VON PIEDILUCO MIT PROZESSION

Erich Wolf, Guben

Sotheby's New York, 17th October 1991, lot 253A

Paul Ortwin Rave, 'Karl Blechen', Denkmäler Deutscher Kunst, Berlin, 1940, p. 340, illustrated, p. 343, catalogued, no. 1315

As a young artist Blechen was influenced by the works of Johan Christian Dahl and Caspar Friedrich which he encountered in Dresden in 1823. He travelled to Italy from September 1828 until November 1829 making hundreds of sketches, which he then used as the basis for compositions painted when back in his studio in Berlin. The current work is characteristic of the artist’s Italianate landscapes, often painted with warm colour tones and infused with southern Mediterranean light. The medieval village of Piediluco in Umbria, reputedly visited by Saint Francis, was popular with Grand Tourists in the 18th and 19th centuries.