Lot description
Monogrammed and dated lower right: LK 1834 (year now difficult to read) Amalfi, Atrani, Ravello, Maiori - Leo von Klenze's paintings and drawings bear witness to his deep love for the towns of the Amalfi coast. This view of Atrani perfectly exemplifies what fascinated the artist about these places. Atrani is the eastern neighbour of Amalfi on the Sorrento peninsula, a small town built in the narrow space between the sea and the steep cliffs in the Dragone valley. In the Middle Ages, the town enjoyed great prosperity as part of the Maritime Republic of Venice, and the investiture of the Doges took place in its church of San Salvatore al Brieto. The preparatory drawing for this painting has survived (fig. 1), making it possible to reconstruct the genesis of the painting. Both drawing and painting show the view of Atrani from the water with the tall bridge that runs along the coast, the houses clinging to the hillside, the spire of the church of Santa Maria Maddalena, and the mighty cliffs towering over the scene. However, there is a remarkable discrepancy in the finished painting: Klenze has transformed the coastline into a river in the foreground, emphasising the contrast between near and far. The strip of land in the foreground reinforces the steep slope of the city in the background. The painting was executed in 1834 and exhibited at the Munich Kunstverein in the same year. The pencil drawing is dated 13 May (1830) and was thus created four years before the painting, which is characteristic of Klenze's oeuvre (Lieb, op. cit., p. 49). On the basis of Klenze's dated sketches, we can trace how he explored the coastline of Amalfi and its surroundings in fascinating detail: 10 May: View of Amalfi and view of the Capuchin monastery; 12 May: View of the Capuchin monastery; 12 May: View of Atrani; 13 May: The Bay of Amalfi, a street scene in Amalfi, the road from Amalfi to Conga, another view of Atrani, this time together with Maiori; 14 May: Rocky reefs by the sea etc. etc. A comparison with other views of Italy painted by Leo von Klenze reveals what fascinated him most about Atrani and the coast of Amalfi. It is striking how often he captured cities and monuments built on steep slopes or in extreme heights, for example his Harbour of Pirano (a gift to Bertel Thorvaldsen), the cathedral at Amalfi, the Castel di Massa in Carrara, the Monte Sacro of Varese or Atrani. You often see figures climbing up the steep steps to churches or depictions of the tightly packed houses towering upwards - Klenze was obviously enamoured by this juxtaposition of nature with the dense, vertical urban architecture, and he deliberately emphasised this in his paintings through the use of low viewpoints. In this sense, the view of Atrani brings to mind some of the painter-architect Klenze's own buildings, such as the (Alte) Pinakothek with its impressive staircases or the Walhalla, which towers over the Danube.