Lot 1353 Dα

The landscape painter Jakob Philipp Hackert settled in Rome in the winter of 1768 after completing his training in Berlin from 1753-1762 and residing in Paris from 1765-1768. In Rome, he worked with increasing success for the numerous foreign aristocratic visitors to the city, as well as for its noble families and clergy. In March 1780 he finished a three year commission to paint a series of nine works for the villa of the Roman prince Marcantonio Borghese IV, which met with broad acclaim.
The view of the Tiber Valley north of the city was among the most popular vedutas of Rome's surrounding countryside, which Hackert presumably already painted in 1769. The artist probably painted looking out from Monte Mario, a hill located above the bow of the Tiber to the north of Rome offering a view of the river valley reaching towards the Sabine hills. In the mid-ground, the river is spanned by an ancient bridge: The “Pons Mulvius” or “Ponte Milvio” was built in 109 A.D. and is known colloquially as “Monte Mollo” (Nordhoff/Reimer 1994 II, op. cit, no. 93).
Hackert used this view of the Tiber valley as the basis of various other landscape compositions, combining the central image of the winding river and mountains with elements from other regions. In this work, the group of majestic oaks on the right side is a motif which he had sketched whilst rambling on the coast of Palo the year before (Nordhoff/Reimer 1994. vol. II, no. 765). Thus, he created works that toed the line between the ideal and the realistic landscape, allowing Hackert's travelling patrons to take home a harmonically composed painting that still captured the essence of the Italian landscapes they visited.
In the close of her extensive expertise, Claudia Nordhoff writes: “Painted at the zenith of his successful career in Rome, the present work can be considered one of Hackert's masterpieces. It is certainly a highly important addition to his oeuvre.” We would like to thank Dr. Nordhoff for her assessment, upon which this catalogue text was based.