(Berlin 1778–1856 Rome) Mountain Landscape near Salzburg with Young Couple, oil on board, 24.4 x 32.2 cm, unframed, (Rei)

Exhibited:
1822 Rome, exhibition in honour of the Prussian King Friedrich III’s visit to Rome

Literature:
Anonym, Aus dem Briefe einer Reisenden, Rom vom 17. November, in: Berlinerische Nachrichten vom Staats- and gelehrten Sachen, no. 145 vom 3 December 1822, o. p. (p.7)

Provenance:
1822 the property of the artist;
c.1993 at Phillips art dealership, Düsseldorf;
Private property, Düsseldorf

The work will be included in the catalogue raisonné currently being compiled by Dr. Andreas Stolzenburg
Letter of authentication issued by Dr. Andreas Stolzenburg, dated July 2012, is available.

Berlin’s painter, graphic artist, watercolourist and etcher Franz Ludwig Catel came to Rome in 1811 where he remained for the rest of his life, enjoying a career as a landscape and genre painter which was both financially and artistically highly successful1. After studying at the academies in Berlin (1794-1797) and Paris (1798-1800), and a period spent in Switzerland (1797), from 1807 he studied oil painting in Paris for several years. He was a member of the Berlin Academy from 1806 onwards. Between 1798 and 1806 he supplied numerous illustrative drawings for contemporary German and French books and almanachs, including works by Goethe and Schilller, for Johann Joachim Campe, Johann Heinrich Voss and the Frenchman Jacques Delille.
The small painting on panel here shows an open mountain landscape in summer, flooded with light, with forested mountains and a sharp peak in the distance. The viewer looks from a raised position down into a green valley with a mill on the river, and further beyond, again on the river, to a small hamlet with a church, its spire reaching to the skies. In the middle distance to the left we see a road and two people, deep in conversation. Cows graze in the meadow beside them. Further behind, on the road is a farmstead. A castle nestles in the mountains in the upper right of the composition. On the raised ground to the right in the foreground stands a man dressed in traditional Salzburg costume with a hat, to his feet a woman in similar local dress. The woman is offering food to a goat standing before her. Two tall pines arch over the group formed by the couple. A little lower down the slope are two more goats, one standing, one lying, both looking down into the valley.
The painting can very probably be identified as Salzburger Gegend (Salzburg region) which Franz Ludwig Catel presented in mid November 1822 at an art exhibition in Rome organised by Prussian artists. The exhibition was organised in honour of King Friedrich III who was in the Eternal City at the time. There were reports of the exhibition in the Berlin news of December 1822. “The presence of his Majesty, the King of Prussia, in this capital city moved the artistic world, namely that of the Prussian artists based here (the number of whom, as well as their talent and industry, is outstanding) to great efforts. Knowing the monarch’s love of art, they organised an exhibition of their most recent works, which, after they had been inspected by the King, was also opened to us foreigners residing here. I find in my writing tablet the following directory with the addition of the names as they were given to me. Catel lead the way; he exhibited several scenes of the area surrounding Naples, a Swiss and a Salzburg region [the work here, Ed.], a number of representations of local rural life and Italian folk scenes, likewise two pictures of battles between the Greeks and the Turks.” Andreas Stolzenburg.