(Vienna 1793-1875) A panoramic view of Florence with a view of the cathedral and the Signoria, signed and dated Thomas Ender 1819, watercolor on paper, 36 x 53 cm, framed, faded, an old archive- or collection number 1008. VII. E.1 on the reverse, (Hu)

Both sheets (lots 187, 188) were executed on the occasion of a journey of Emperor Francis I. and the Vienna court to Italy (March 9. to June 6, 1819). The inventary numbers on each sheet’s reverse suggest a greater number of collection items.

Literature: Thomas Kuster, Das italienische Reisetagebuch Kaiser Franz I. von Austria aus dem Jahre 1819, Agenda Verlag Münster, 2008.

We are grateful to Dr. Maria Luise Sternath, Vienna for the scientific consultation..

Provenance: Annemarie Wetzler Collection (1911-1937), Vienna;
whose estate auction held at Albert Kende, Vienna 17th February 1938, Los 4;
Private ownership, Vienna.

Franz I was born in Florence and lived there until he was 16. His travel diary of an Italy trip from 1819 consists mostly of landscape perceptions; the reader also discovers extensive descriptions of individual buildings, objects of art, especially paintings, reviews of artists, and even visits to individual artists' studios. Franz I took, among others, Thomas Ender and Johann Nepomuk Hoechle along on his court tour, to document and illustrate.

We find the following in the travel diary: "15th March. Spent the morning in Boboli, wandering the former quarters of Count Thurn, which have partly been re-done, and which are still partly under construction. 19th March. then, the Groote [grotto in the Boboli Gardens in Rome] at Bacchus by memory, looking inside the same, next to which–at the wall of the Boboli–a piece with levels goes up between trees, then over the driveway to the [Pallazzina della] Meridiana to the house. 25th March. The Meridiana, where my mother lived, is very nice and set low with double quarters, now occupied by the son of my brother and his wife." (See Kuster, Reisetagebuch, pp. 52,53,115,119,126).