(Leipzig 1789–1869)
Italian Fishermen in the Harbour of Naples, 1828/29, label on the reverse, oil on canvas, 43.5 x 34.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private Collection, Austria;
Dorotheum, Vienna, 11 October 2011, lot 59;
Private Collection, Austria.

Exhibited:
Königlich Sächsische Akademie der Künste, 1829, no. 467 (“A Remembrance of Naples, a View from the Villa Reale by Moonlight”);
Carl Gustav Carus. Natur und Idee, exhibition of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie, Semperbau am Zwinger, Residenzschloss Dresden, 26 June - 20 September 2009 and Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 9 October 2009 - 10 January 2010.

Catalogued and Illustrated in:
Verzeichnis der vom 2. August 1829 an der Königlich Sächsischen Akademie der Künste zu Dresden öffentlich ausgestellten Kunstwerke, Dresden 1829, no. 467;
Marianne Prause, Carl Gustav Carus. Leben und Werk, Berlin 1968, no. 164; Petra Kulmann-Hocik, Gerd Spitzer, Bernhard Maaz (eds.), Carl Gustav Carus. Natur und Idee, exhibition catalogue, Berlin, Munich 2009, p. 114, no. 101.

The present lot was first shown by Carl Gustav Carus 1829 in Dresden at the Academy Exhibition as “A Remembrance of Naples”. In this exhibition he presented his impressions of typical folk life as well as the atmosphere of the area in evocative landscape depictions to the public. As if on a stage, he placed the theatrical Neapolitan harbour scene with fishermen playing music, the of Vesuvius stretching out in the background and Castel dell’Ovo on the left. Between the guitarist and his listeners, the bright moonlight is reflected in the sea. Carus skilfully sets this light effect in scene in his painting.
Carl Gustav Carus, who was known more as a doctor, received drawing lessons before his school days and made early acquaintance with Friedrich Schiller and Goethe’s drawing teacher Adam Friedrich Oeser. In addition to his medical studies, he continued to attend the drawing school at the Pleißenburg, led by Johann Friedrich August Tischbein. As a doctor he was appointed professor of obstetrics in 1815 and participated as a painter in the Dresden art exhibition in 1816. A year later he made the personal acquaintance of Caspar David Friedrich, who had a lasting influence on Carus’ painting style, as did his close acquaintance with Johann Wolfgang Goethe, with whom he maintained lively correspondence. With his multifaceted scientific education and interdisciplinary work, Carl Gustav Carus is considered one of Germany’s most important polymaths and belongs to the generation of Romantics who dealt in depth with the cosmos.