Lot 10 D α

In a letter to Rudolf Lepke dated 30 July 1876, Oswald Achenbach reports that the ‘painting, Fontana Trevi’ ‘will not be finished in 14 days’ (Potthoff, op. cit.). The painting in question, which was eventually completed, was the present veduta, dated 1876. In it, Achenbach makes the Fontana di Trevi, one of Rome's most famous and charming monuments, the dominant subject. The largest fountain in the Eternal City was built in 1723 on the orders of Pope Clement XII. It leans against the south façade of the Palazzo Poli and is dominated by a triumphal arch crowned with the papal coat of arms, in whose central niche the sea god Oceanus is depicted. From there, the water pours into a large flat basin decorated with an elaborate rocky landscape.
Eight years after painting this picture, Achenbach depicted the Trevi Fountain again at night. This painting was auctioned at Lempertz on 20 November 2017 (fig. 1).
In addition to the architectural depiction, our work features a diverse and lively array of figures in the lower half of the picture. Here we find residents of Rome as well as the countless travellers and tourists who still populate the square in front of the Trevi Fountain today. Next to an elegant lady dressed in yellow with a black veil in the lower left corner, several people are resting on the steps of the square; merchants and farmers carry baskets of vegetables or bottles wrapped in bast, while others balance clay jugs on their heads. But the most interesting figure is probably the man with a hat pulled low over his face and two drawing portfolios under his arms: He is depicted above the signature, and we may thus assume that he is a self-portrait of the artist.