(Proppentin in Mecklenburg 1791–1868 Dresden) Portrait of Vittoria Caldoni of Albano, oil on canvas, 79 x 63 cm, framed (frame damaged), (Rei)

Provenance: Dr. Walter Grahl (grandson), Private German property. August Grahl Studied from 1811 at the Berlin Academy, was a Lützow Hussar in the Napoleonic wars of liberation before travelling to Italy for the first time from 1817 to 1818 where he visited Rome, Florence and Milan. He spent the years from 1821 to 1830 in Italy, primarily in Rome, where he lived with J. Schnorr von Carolsfeld, amongst others, and moved within the circle of Roman artists. In 1831 he travelled to England, painting numerous portraits of society members before moving to Berlin. In 1835 he moved to Dresden which was to be his permanent home, and from where he made his final journey to Rome in 1835. Art historians frequently classify Grahl as a “miniature painter” because of his numerous small format portraits, often painted on ivory. However, he is also known to have painted medium and large scale oil paintings on panel and canvas. His works can be found in public collections in Dresden and Nantes, amongst others. Vittoria Caldoni Was born in 1806, the daughter of a winegrower from Albano. In 1820 she was discovered by the Hanoverian legation councillor August Kestner. He left a comprehensive report in his “Roman Studies”: “Suddenly he sees a young girl sitting in front of a small house. For a moment she looks up from her embroidery before shyly lowering her eyes. Struck by her appearance, the rider stares at this sweet vision before rushing home and announcing to his friends that they would “soon see the most wonderful creature in the world!” ....”She appeared in a becoming Albanian folk costume, with a scarlet waistcoat, the arms of which were trimmed with real gold, her classically noble face strongly framed by the snow-white headscarf..” (Quote from “Vittoria the Beautiful Winegrower” in Koralle, a German weekly magazine for “entertainment, knowledge and zest for life”, issue no.30, Vol.11, 452f.) Over a course of several sittings, the 14 year old Vittoria was portrayed by numerous members of the German and international circle of artists in Rome, and then repeatedly for several years, her image captured in many drawings, paintings and also busts, in a variety of artistic styles. Almost all the representations of the famous model show a long, slim neck bearing a head of noble shape with a large, straight forehead, and the contours of the face concluding with a classical, straight nose. The oval eyes, almond shaped and standing slightly proud, located precisely between temples and nose, is harmoniously accentuated by slim brows and dark eyelashes. The lower half of the face, however, seems to have had less harmious proportions, with a relatively small mouth, close to the nose, and slightly full chin. (Quote from Georg Poensgen, Zu einer neu aufgetauchten Portraitbüste der Vittoria Coldoni von Rudoph Schadow, in Pantheon, Internationale Zeitschrift für Kunst, 24. Volume, 1966, p. 252.) Vittoria Caldoni married an artist from the Baltics and had two children. She lived with her family on the Crimean peninsula. In a letter to the purchaser of the painting, the artist’s grandson, Walter Grahl, writes, “…who wrote to me saying that this is certainly a painting of Vittoria. My grandfather was a friend of Kestner and probably met Caldoni through him.” A copy of the letter from Walter Grahl dated 1943 is available.