Mountain landscape near Civitella

Details

Provenienz:
Privatbesitz, Süddeutschland.

Descrizione

Like his older brother Ernst (1801-1833), Bernhard Fries repeatedly travelled to Italy. He came into contact with Carl Rottmann’s art at an early age. In 1860, following the bankruptcy of his father’s bank, Fries settled in Munich to support his family with the proceeds of his paintings. In the following years up to 1866, Fries created his main painterly work there: a cycle of forty Italian landscapes based on Rottmann’s Italian paintings in the Hofgarten arcades for a pavilion designed by his friend Gottfried Neureuther. The building never materialised, but the paintings were to be placed in two rows, one above the other, in a hall illuminated by an opening in the ceiling. Fries then intended to sell the cycle as a whole to King Ludwig II, but this plan also failed, which is why Fries was forced to sell the paintings individually due to his plight. Today they are scattered to the four winds and some of them can no longer be traced. This view of the mountainous surroundings near Civitella also appears to have been part of the cycle in question.