Lot Essay
This is a variant of the picture signed and dated 1846 of similar size (Christie's, 26 September 2001, lot 20, £201,750). The 1846 canvas is thought to be the picture exhibited by Hildebrandt at the Berliner Akademie in 1848 ('Blick auf Santa Gloria bei Rio de Janeiro. Sonnenuntergang mit Spiegelung im Wasser. Neger bei einem feuer kochend'). Both the present and 1846 canvases appear to have been worked up from the watercolour of April 1844 (dating to the artist's Brazilian sojourn March-October 1844) in Hildebrandt's Brazilian sketchbooks (in the collection of Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin).