Klassiskt & Asiatiskt
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To be sold at Uppsala Auktionskammare’s Important Sale: Classic & Asian 8-10 December 2021
Lot 205 Constantin Hansen (Denmark 1804‑1880). View of the Lepini mountains. Signed Const H. Oil on canvas laid on panel, 61.5 x 150.5 cm.
300.000 – 400.000 SEK
€ 30.000 – 40.000
”A group of Danish Artists in Rome” from 1937 in Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, is perhaps Constantin Hansen’s most well known painting. It was commissioned by The Copenhagen Art Union (Kunstforeningen), showing Hansen himself along with his fellow Danish painters Michael Gottlieb Bindesbøll, Martinus Rørbye, Wilhelm Marstrand, Albert Küchler, Dietlev Blunck and Jørgen Sonne in Rome. In Italy they experienced new artistic endeavors and encounters, significant for their development as painters. The painting is one of the highlights of the Danish Golden Age, marking a crucial point in Hansen’s oeuvre and life.
Constantin Hansen, born in Rome to Danish parents, had started his studies at Kunstakademiets Bygningsskole to become an architect, however he changed his path and continued at the Kunstakademiets Modelskole to become a painter. His teachers were J.F. Clemens and C.A. Lorentzen, but it was Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg who would have the biggest influence on Hansen. In 1835 Hansen received a scholarship for his European travels and he left for Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Nuremberg, Munich to finally reach Rome. He would stay in Italy 1835-1843, and travelled through the country visiting Naples, Pompei and Paestum, apart from his longer stays in Rome. He was accompanied by other Danish artists like Jørgen Roed, Christen Købke and Georg Hilker on the excursions. It is during one of these southern trips that Hansen painted “View of the Lepini mountains” now included in this sale. It is a wide panorama, depicting the Lepini mountains in the background and the town of Velletri in the mid raising on the hill. A carriage with timber is central in the foreground. A comparison can be made with his painting “Scene på Molo’en ved Napoli”, in Statens Museum for Kunst, from 1839 where the painter has captured a crowded scene at the harbour with a mountainous background, with purple and brownish shadows. The rendering of the light as well as the colour scheme are closely related.
Just a few hours south of Rome the landscape changes dramatically where the Apennine mountains reaches to the sky. In the Lazio region the Lepini mountains make part of the Ante-Apennines. Its highest peak is Monte Semprevisa (1,536 m). The wide view must be taken from Via dei Laghi facing towards Velletri, Cori, Agro Pontino and in the fond Monte Circeo, situated just by the Mediterranean coast. The Roman road Via Appia leading from Rome is connected to Via dei Laghi. It has ever since the Roman times been the natural path to the south of Italy. For the Danish painter, the landscape must have been a true sensation and quite far from the topography of his home country. With a realistic sharpness, Hansen, like the other Danish Golden Age-painters, manages to capture the people, the society and the nature in a direct and honest way, yet with a beautiful shimmer of idealness. The art is academic, the painters were educated at the Academy of Art in Copenhagen, and taught by Eckersberg to paint what they had in front of them. The result was astonishing and the “View of the Lepini mountains” included in this sale is just one example of the captivating artworks from this flourishing period.
The Danish Golden Age, set in first half of the 19th century, has widely brought the attention from a wider public lately thanks to the grand exhibition held at Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Statens Museum for Kunst on Copenhagen and Petit Palais Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris 2019-2021. It is rare to see such a large painting and of such high quality by one of the foremost Golden Age-painters to be offered at auction. A true sensation and a possibility to acquire an artwork from the period so admired not only in Denmark but all over the world. ■