Johann Carl Andreas Ludewig - The Youth of Bacchus - image-1

Lot 448 Dα

Johann Carl Andreas Ludewig - The Youth of Bacchus

Auction 1084 - overview Berlin
03.05.2017, 18:00 - The Berlin Sale
Estimate: 8.000 € - 10.000 €

Johann Carl Andreas Ludewig

The Youth of Bacchus

Oil on canvas. 27 x 35 cm.
Signed and dated lower right: IOHANNES LUDWIGIUS PINGEBAT MDCCCVII.

The works of the Berlin painter Johann Carl Andreas Ludewig are exceedingly rare. Little is known of his life, and it is recorded in the "Berliner Abendblättern" from 10th October 1810 that the young painter "died much too soon". He is known to have exhibited in the exhibitions of the Berlin Academy: Once as a pupil in 1802, and again as an artist of that city in 1806.
The musician Karl Friedrich Zelter describes a large painting by Ludewig entitled "Die Höllenfahrt des Judas Ischarioth" (Judas Iscariot's journey down to hell) in a letter to Goethe from 1804. The work was evidently the source of some controversary among the cultural elite of Berlin. In 1807, the year this work was painted, Ludewig applied to the Berlin Academy for the position of perspective master following Franz Ludwig Catel, but the post was assigned to Martin Friedrich Rabe, as Ludewig's application was dismissed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel.

Provenance

Prince Josef Clemens von Bayern. - Private ownership, South Germany.