Beschreibung:

RUNDT, Carl Ludwig. Views of Italy, a collection of ORIGINAL DRAWINGS. Italy: c.1829-1838. 181 x 226mm - 237 x 314mm; mounted to 384 x 464mm. 99 original drawings, comprising 4 oil-on-paper sketches, 14 black chalk or pen and black ink and watercolour, and 82 in pencil, including 17 on tracing paper, two signed, several dated 1829, 1830, 1831, 1835, 1838, almost all with pencilled identification of the location and occasional notes on colour. One printed broadside announcing the coronation of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, one mount with MS poem, notes and visiting card of Carl Rundt, one small print. (A few small tears in those on tracing paper, very occasional spotting.) Loose, on paper mounts, in modern red buckram portfolio. The Königsberg (today Kalinengrad) artist Carl Rundt (1802-1868) spent almost 30 years living in Italy, even after he was appointed painter to the Prussian Court in 1846. This series of original drawings dates primarily from his first decade there, 1829-1838, and the views are almost exclusively of the region between Rome and Naples. The Rome views include the city as seen from the Villa Borghese, several views of Castel Sant'Angelo, the Colosseum, Porta S. Giovanni, Santa Maria Maggiore, and St. Peter's. Outside Rome, there are 15 views of Sorrento, and several of Subiaco, Castellammare, Calabria, Palermo, Naples, various monasteries, villas, landscapes and coastal views. Venice is the subject of two drawings. Rundt visited England in 1847, and his scenes of Oxford were published in 1851-2. He also painted interior views of St. Paul's Cathedral at London (Thieme-Becker lists two) and two drawings in the present collection are of St. Paul's. Another drawing is of Seville. Several of the drawings were apparently executed for patrons, as they are inscribed 'Fr Graf Lothen ins Album', etc. Among the portraits and studies of native costume are portraits of Graf Hompesch and M. Sakomilsky and his wife.