(Krems 1739–1823 Vienna)
The waterfalls at Tivoli,
oil on canvas, 136.5 x 250 cm, original frame

On the reverse a label bearing a handwritten inscription: K. u. K. Albertina

Provenance:
Field Marshal Archduke Frederick of Austria (1856–1936), palace of Archduke Albrecht (Albertina), Vienna;
Sale, Albert Kende und Gilhofer & Ranschburg, Vienna, 8–10 February 1933, lot 97;
Director Oscar Hock (1874–1948), Vienna;
his widow Katharina Hock (1883–1960), Vienna;
her daughter Susanna, Lady Jeans, née Hock (1911–1993, the organist who became famous as Susi Jeans);
European Private Collection

Literature:
Barbara Krafft und Michael Wutky (= Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Galerie, 4), exhibition catalogue, Vienna, 1960, p. 8, no. 12

Exhibited:
Österreichische Galerie at the Belvedere, Vienna, Barbara Krafft und Michael Wutky, 48th temporary exhibition, 1960, no. 12

In 1759, Wutky was admitted to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts as a student of Martin van Mytens the Younger and Johann Christian Brand. In 1770 he became a member of the Academy. In 1776, Wutky moved to Italy and settled in Rome. Frequent journeys to Naples provided him with inspiration for his famous descriptions of volcanic eruptions. His studies, which he executed in situ, were long considered the most precise scientific representations of volcanism. Because of such classical Italian landscapes as the present painting, contemporaries placed Wutky on an equal footing with Jacob Philipp Hackert, who was something of a rival. Having returned to Vienna in 1801, Wutky travelled to Italy once more in 1805 and managed to repeat his earlier successes. His painting style marks the transition from Baroque dramatism to an ideal landscape approach.

The present painting, which seems to have already been owned by Archduke Albrecht of Austria (1817–1895), uncle and adoptive father of Archduke Frederick, was installed in the palace of Archduke Frederick, today’s Albertina, until 1933. According to the inscription on the reverse side, it hung in the ‘Yellow Salon’ (Room III, see photograph). After the collapse of the monarchy and according to the 1919 Habsburg Act, the archduke was forced to leave the palace and was only allowed to take along with him his personal belongings. In 1933 the auction houses Kende and Gilhofer & Ranschburg organised a ‘Sale of the Furniture, Art Objects, and Paintings from the Palaces in Vienna and Austria of Archduke Frederick’. It is unknown whether the future owner of the painting, Oscar Hock, acquired the painting directly at this auction or whether it had an intermediary owner. After the death of Hock’s widow, the painting passed into the possession of his daughter Susanna, Lady Jeans, in 1960, who was a leading English musician of the 20th century.

Additional picture
Yellow Room, Albertina, Vienna