Skip to Main Content
Home>Collection>The Fortress of Königstein

Overview

Nephew and pupil of the celebrated Venetian view painter Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto began by depicting various locations in Venice in the precisely topographical style of his uncle. As he traveled throughout Italy, however, Bellotto gradually developed a distinctive and increasingly poetic manner of his own. The turning point in the artist's career came in 1747, when Augustus III, elector of Saxony and king of Poland, invited him to Dresden, where he became court painter. Though accurate enough to have served centuries later in the post-World War II reconstruction of the city, Bellotto's varied and imaginatively conceived views of Dresden transcend the limits of topography. When Prussian troops captured the Saxon capital in the autumn of 1756, Bellotto moved on to work for the courts of Vienna and of Munich, where his vedute (view paintings) became even more artistically complex. The influence of Ruisdael and other seventeenth-century Dutch landscapists played a crucial role in forming Bellotto's mature concept of landscape. After attempting unsuccessfully to resurrect his career in Dresden (his munificent patron had died), Bellotto ended by working for Augustus' successor in Warsaw, the last great European center he recorded and ennobled through his art.

Although Bellotto was primarily a painter of the urban scene, his Fortress of Königstein is one of five large canvases, commissioned by Augustus III in the spring of 1756 but never delivered, depicting the renovated medieval fortress in the countryside near Dresden. The other canvases in the series, of identical size and format, consist of images of both the interior and the exterior of the castle, viewed from a closer vantage point than that adopted for the Gallery's painting. All five paintings were probably imported into England during the artist's lifetime, and they remained there until this painting was acquired by the Gallery in 1993. The two exterior views were together in the collection of the earl of Derby at Knowsley House, Lancashire, until 2017 when one of them was acquired by the National Gallery, London. The other two views, taken from inside the castle walls, belong to the City Art Gallery, Manchester. The castle of Königstein, almost unchanged in appearance today, sits atop a mountain rising precipitously from the Elbe River valley. Exploiting the picturesque quality of the site, Bellotto invested the Gallery's picture with a sense of drama and monumentality rarely found in eighteenth-century view painting. Bellotto's panorama effectively contrasts the imposing mass of the fortress, perched on a rocky precipice, with the broad expanse of cloud-filled sky and with the bucolic scene of rustic peasants and their animals, picked out in the foreground by the flickering light. The middle ground is occupied by forests, fields, and pathways leading to the castle at the apex of the mountain. In Bellotto's interpretation, Königstein castle becomes an awesome--and ironic--symbol of his patron's might at the very moment of his defeat.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/italian-paintings-17th-and-18th-centuries.pdf

Provenance

Commissioned by Augustus III, king of Poland and elector of Saxony [1696-1763].[1] Henry Temple, 2nd viscount Palmerston [1739-1802], London;[2] by inheritence to his son Henry John Temple, 3rd viscount Palmerston [1784-1865], London; (sale, Foster’s, London, 5 November 1850, no. 290);[3] (Anderson); Henry, 4th earl Beauchamp [1784-1863], Madresfield Court, Worcestershire;[4] by inheritance to Else, countess Beauchamp [1895-1989];[5] (sale, Sotheby's, London, 11 December 1991, no. 18); (Bernheimer Fine Arts Ltd., London and Munich, and Meissner Fine Art Ltd., Zurich and London); sold 3 June 1993 to NGA.

[1] Five views of Königstein were commissioned and executed on canvases of the same size and format between 1756 and 1758. They were intended to complete the earlier views of Dresden and Pirna painted for the king and to be placed in the Stallgebäude, the wing of the royal palace that housed the paintings collection. The commission was interrupted, however, by the hostilities of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), and the paintings were never delivered to the royal collection. It is unclear whether Bellotto had finished all the paintings before he departed Dresden in 1758; four views of Königstein were listed in a catalogue of his apartment contents made before he left the city, which he returned to in 1761 for five years. (See Lucy Chiswell, “Bernardo Bellotto and the Fortress of Königstein,” in Bellotto: The Königstein Views Reunited, exh. cat. London, 2021: 34, 39, n. 19.) The paintings might have been seized by the Prussians during the siege of Dresden, Pirna, and Königstein, and then sold. Alternatively, following the disarray of the Saxon court and the depletion of its treasury, Bellotto might have retained the canvases and sold them privately. In 1765, he published a large etching of the Washington painting, as well as one of the painting now in the collection of the earl of Derby, Knowsley Hall (as of 2021). By the late eighteenth century all five paintings had arrived in England; the first two came to light in a sale at Christie's, London, 7 March 1778, lots 79 and 80, described as "A View of the fortress of Koningstein [sic] in Saxony, painted for the King of Poland. A ditto, its companion" (sale catalogue, Christie, Manson, and Woods, Catalogue of the capital collection of Italian, French, Flemish and Dutch pictures). Both passed to the collection of the marquess of Londonderry, Wynyard Park, Durham, and were acquired by the City Art Gallery, Manchester, in 1983 (James Byam Shaw, "Two Views of the Castle of Königstein by Bernardo Bellotto," National Art Collections Fund Review [1984]: 139-140).

[2] The 2nd viscount Palmerston, a Whig politician who served 40 years in Parliament, acquired three Königstein paintings in the 1790s. Now in the National Gallery of Art, the National Gallery, London, and the collection of the earl of Derby, all three retain the gilt-wood frame Lord Palmerston had made for them in the 1790s. Where and when he acquired the paintings is unknown. They hung in his London House in Hanover Square, which he acquired in 1790. However, alterations were still being made to the property in 1796, when he moved in, so it is unlikely that the paintings were there before that date (Connell, Brian, Portrait of a Whig Peer. Compiled from the Papers of the Second Viscount Palmerston 1739-1802, London, 1957: 208-209, 259-260, 346). The earliest reference to Bellotto in the Palmerston collection is found an undated inventory (paper watermarked 1796), "Catalogue of Pictures belonging to Lord Palmerston in Hanover Square," which records a "View of Keenigsteen” (sic) by “Cannaletti." (Bellotto, like his more famous uncle, was called both Canaletto and Canaletti in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.) It was valued at 250 pounds, but this may refer to all three Königstein paintings (Stephen Lloyd, “Bellotto, Britain, and the Königstein Paintings,” in London, 2021: 44). One of the paintings is recorded after Lord Palmerston's death in an undated manuscript (paper watermarked 1804) of "Pictures in Stanhope Street and Hanover Square" as "Cannaletti Koningstein 105 pounds" (Sotheby's 1991 sale catalogue, 37, citing Broadlands Papers, Southampton University Library Archives and Manuscripts, BR 126/11 and BR 126/15).

[3] The long-held family tradition that the 3rd Lord Palmerston gave it, perhaps to pay a debt, to William Lygon, 1st earl Beauchamp [1747-1816], Madresfield Court, Worcestershire (as recounted in Sotheby's 1991 sale catalogue, 37), is contradicted by a copy of the 1850 Foster’s sale catalogue marked as having been sold for 99 pounds, 15 shillings to “Anderson” (Getty Provenance Index, Br-5804, Lot 0290). The painting is described as “A View of Koenigstein on the Elbe, cattle and group of figures in the costume of the time in the foreground; the buildings and figures on this remarkable height are beautifully sketched in, and the environs and approaches painted with great truth and power.” (The NGA was alerted to the existence of the Foster’s sale catalogue by Letizia Treves, curator the National Gallery, London. See email of 22 February 2021 in curatorial records, as well as Lloyd, pp. 43-45 and 47, n. 18).

[4] See note 3 for reference to Anderson. According to the provenance of the painting reconstructed in the 2021 London exhibition catalogue (p. 56), Anderson was probably the agent purchasing for Henry, 4th Earl Beauchamp (1784-1863).

[5] The painting is mentioned as belonging to the earl Beauchamp in an 1875 catalogue of the collection of the earls of Derby. (Scharf, George, A Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures at Knowsley Hall, London, 1875: 10, at end of entry for no. 17. Digitized by the GRL, accessed 11 November 2021.) The painting presumably descended to his son, Henry, 5th earl Beauchamp (1829-1866); his brother, Frederick, 6th earl Beauchamp (1830-1891); his son, William, 7th earl Beauchamp (1872-1938); his son, William, 8th earl Beauchamp (1903-1979); and then to his wife, Else, countess Beauchamp (1895-1989).

Exhibition History

1991
[On special display], Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, 1991.
1992
International Antique Dealers Fair, New York, 1992.
1994
The Glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century, Royal Academy of Arts, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Museo del Settecento Veneziano - Ca'Rezzonico, Venice, 1994-1995, no. 256 (London and Washington), no. 79 (Venice), repro.
2000
Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2000-2001, unnumbered catalogue, repro.
2001
Bernardo Bellotto 1722-1780, Museo Correr, Venice; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2001, no. 65, repro. (shown only in Houston).
2005
Bernardo Bellotto genannt Canaletto - Europäische Veduten, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 2005, no. 16, repro.
2021
Bellotto: The Königstein Views Reunited, National Gallery, London and Manchester, 2021, no. 2, repro., as The Fortress of Königstein from the North West (shown only in London).

Technical Summary

The support is a fine plain-weave fabric
of medium weight, prepared with a light red ground of
medium thickness. The paint has been applied with fluent
brushwork and the handling reveals considerable variety
in touch and application. In many places in the landscape
and fortress the paint has been applied with strong
brushstrokes, employing fairly thick paint to vary
thickness and texture. The deliberate use of a fairly dry brush to create
texture is particularly evident in the fortress. The upper-right
edge of the escarpment was originally placed 4 cm
to the right of its present location; indications of this
change are faintly visible. In contrast, the sky has been painted
more loosely and rapidly, the broad, sweeping strokes imparting
a sense of active weather, light, and movement.
The thinner application of paint in the sky has permitted the
red ground to show through, although in certain areas the aging
of the paint, previous varnish removals, and abrasion
have revealed more of the red ground than was originally
intended. Aside from minor abrasion in the sky and trees
in the lower-left foreground, the painting is in exceptional
condition. It was treated in 1992 by Bruno Heimberg at the
Doerner Institute, Munich, prior to acquisition. Additional
conservation treatment, including varnish removal and in
painting, was carried out by David Bull in 1993.

Bibliography

1875
Scharf, George, A Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures at Knowsley Hall, London, 1875: 10, at end of entry for no. 17.
1985
Scharf, George. A Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures at Knowsley Hall. London, 1985: 10.
1991
Sotheby's, London. Old Master Paintings, 11 December 1991: 35-37, color repro. 34, 36, 37 (details).
1993
Bowron, Edgar Peters. Bernardo Bellotto: The Fortress of Königstein. Washington, D.C., 1993: 1-14, figs. 1, 2, 10.
1994
Bowron, Edgar Peters. "Acquisition in Focus: Bellotto's Fortress of Königstein at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C." Apollo 140 (1994): 72-73.
1994
The Glory of Venice. Exh. cat. Royal Academy of Arts, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Museo del Settecento Veneziano - Ca'Rezzonico, Venice; Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice, 1994-1995: 361-375, 428, cat. 256, color pl. 368.
1995
National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of A rt, Washington, Rev. ed. Washington, D.C.,1995: 115, repro.
1996
De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 14-18, color repro. 15.
1998
Bernardo Bellotto en Dresde en la Galeria de Pinturasde Dresde. Bilboko Arte Eder Museoa, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 1998: 27, repro. 26.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 234-235, no. 185, color repro.
2011
Brogi, Alessandro. “Bernardo Bellotto.” In 100 Paysages: Exposition d’un genre, edited by Michael Jakob and Claire-Lise Schwok. Collection Archigraphy Paysages series. Gollion, CH, 2011: no. 79, color repro.
2015
"Art for the Nation: The Story of the Patrons' Permanent Fund." National Gallery of Art Bulletin, no. 53 (Fall 2015): 12-13, repro.
2016
Warner-Johnson, Tim, and Jeremy Howard, eds. Colnaghi: Past, Present and Future: An Anthology. London, 2016: 204-205, color plate 11.

Related Content

  • Sort by:
  • Results layout:
Show  results per page
The image compare list is empty.