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Lot Essay
This undocumented picture is a key addition to Hackert’s known views of Mount Vesuvius, recording an eruption that took place on 12 January 1774. Hackert visited Naples for the first time in 1770, when he met Sir William Hamilton (1730- 1803), British ambassador at the court of Naples and a passionate observer of Mount Vesuvius. Hamilton reached the crater of the volcano a remarkable fifty-eight times, recording his observations in letters sent to the Royal Society of London and engaging Pietro Fabris to illustrate his major work, Campi Phlegraei, Observations on the Volcanoes of the Two Sicilies, published in 1776. Hackert was also commissioned to provide illustrations for the text; although his designs remained unpublished, Hackert and Hamilton became close friends, sharing a common interest in the meticulous documenting of nature. Hackert wrote, in a short treatise in 1790, that ‘the painter has to pay attention […] lime rocks can be very different one from the other, and volcanic rocks have a very special character, in their form as well as in colour’ (cited in N. Miller and C. Nordhoff (eds.), Lehrreiche Nähe. Goethe und Hackert. Bestandsverzeichnis der Gemälde und Graphik Jakob Philipp Hackerts in den Sammlungen des Goethe-Nationalmuseums Weimar. Briefwechsel zwischen Goethe und Hackert. Kunsttheoretische Aufzeichnungen aus Hackerts Nachlass, Munich and Vienna, 1997, p. 113).
Many of Hackert’s pictures and drawings bear detailed inscriptions recording the name and date of the depicted site. One such picture, in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel, dated 12 January 1774, shows the same composition as this canvas. Goethe, in his biography of the artist, confirmed that Hackert has witnessed the eruption of that month: ‘There he had the opportunity in January 1774 to execute various studies of an eruption that took place right at this moment, using them repeatedly after his return to Rome for bigger paintings’ (J.W. von Goethe, Werke. Winckelmann. Philipp Hackert, XLVI, Weimar, 1891, pp. 139-40). This picture, then, was no doubt also painted in Rome; it has slight differences to the Kassel version in the way the figures are arranged.
Showing an eruption at such close proximity was unusual in the eighteenth century, breaking with a tradition that favoured more panoramic views of Vesuvius. The influence of Hamilton and his insistence in close observation of nature must have prompted this innovative way of representing the volcano and its history. The picture is executed with great realism, as flames burst out of the crater and pieces of lava erupt into the air: it shows only a part of the volcano that is formed by a huge lower base, the Monte Somma, with the inner cone rising from this base, Mount Vesuvius itself. Between the two areas lies a high valley on the eastern side called the valle d’inferno, and on the northern side, the atrio del cavallo, from where this view is taken.
The figures in the foreground here are most likely Grand Tourists, accompanied by local guides that used to pull visitors up the slopes of Vesuvius by making them grasp their belts; a guide and a man climbing up the left side of the cone illustrate the procedure in this picture. It is tempting to identify the central figure that appears to be explaining the natural phenomenon with Sir William Hamilton, who could well have accompanied Hackert on this excursion.
We are grateful to Dr. Claudia Nordhoff for confirming the attribution and for her kind assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
Many of Hackert’s pictures and drawings bear detailed inscriptions recording the name and date of the depicted site. One such picture, in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel, dated 12 January 1774, shows the same composition as this canvas. Goethe, in his biography of the artist, confirmed that Hackert has witnessed the eruption of that month: ‘There he had the opportunity in January 1774 to execute various studies of an eruption that took place right at this moment, using them repeatedly after his return to Rome for bigger paintings’ (J.W. von Goethe, Werke. Winckelmann. Philipp Hackert, XLVI, Weimar, 1891, pp. 139-40). This picture, then, was no doubt also painted in Rome; it has slight differences to the Kassel version in the way the figures are arranged.
Showing an eruption at such close proximity was unusual in the eighteenth century, breaking with a tradition that favoured more panoramic views of Vesuvius. The influence of Hamilton and his insistence in close observation of nature must have prompted this innovative way of representing the volcano and its history. The picture is executed with great realism, as flames burst out of the crater and pieces of lava erupt into the air: it shows only a part of the volcano that is formed by a huge lower base, the Monte Somma, with the inner cone rising from this base, Mount Vesuvius itself. Between the two areas lies a high valley on the eastern side called the valle d’inferno, and on the northern side, the atrio del cavallo, from where this view is taken.
The figures in the foreground here are most likely Grand Tourists, accompanied by local guides that used to pull visitors up the slopes of Vesuvius by making them grasp their belts; a guide and a man climbing up the left side of the cone illustrate the procedure in this picture. It is tempting to identify the central figure that appears to be explaining the natural phenomenon with Sir William Hamilton, who could well have accompanied Hackert on this excursion.
We are grateful to Dr. Claudia Nordhoff for confirming the attribution and for her kind assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.