Lot 2557 Dα

The young Carl Morgenstern travelled to Italy for the first time in 1834. The offspring of a Frankfurt artist family, he was initially not impressed with this popular place, one which had been visited by generations of German artists and authors before him; rather, as he himself wrote, he caught an “awful hangover”. The Italian landscape overburdened the young artist who had grown up with Dutch 17th century art as his artistic role model. However, he soon recovered and wrote home ‚”just imagine, what a bold fellow I have become“. Indeed, Morgenstern quickly learnt to capture the warm light and southern atmosphere in his landscapes in Italy. Together with his artist friends he visited all the cities and landscapes that a young German artist should see: Naples, Sicily, Tivoli, the Alban Hills, and more. The present view of Naples is from 1874 and depicts the confident treatment of the artist, who had been appointed professor eight years earlier, with the Italian landscape, whose unique atmosphere he once again masterly evokes.