Bernardo Bellotto
Italian, 1721–1780

View of Pirna with the Fortress of Sonnenstein, 1755/65

Oil on canvas
19 3/8 x 31 1/4 in. (49.3 x 79.5 cm)
Inscribed, on a sign in the center foreground, beneath the coat of arms of the Elector of Saxony: Haupt... lei... (only partly legible)/ 1752
Clyde M. Carr Fund, 1961.44

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, Connecticut Collects: An Exhibition of Privately Owned Works of Art in Connecticut, October 4 to November 3, 1957, cat. 2.

Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Bellotto, July 29 - October 21, 2001, not in cat.

Publication History

Antonio Morassi, "Settecento Inedito (II)", Arte Veneta 4 (1950), pp. 48-49, fig. 43.

Burlington Magazine 102, (December 1960), p. xxi, (ill.). "Il Collezionista," Sele Arte 9, no. 49, (1961), p. 79, fig. 125.

Dresden Albertinum, Bernardo Bellotto: gennant Canaletto, exhib. cat., 1963, p. 85, no. 20 c-d.

Nationalmuseum Warschau, Bernardo Bellotto: gennant Canaletto, exhib. cat., 1964, p. 93, no. 20c-d.

Österreichische Kulturvereinigung, Oberes Belvedere, Bernardo Bellotto: genannt Canaletto, exhib. cat., 1965, p. 107, no. 27 c-d.

John FitzMaurice Mills, "Art Forum", The Irish Times, March 17, 1966, (ill.).

John Maxon, "Some Recent Acquisitions", Apollo 84 (1966), p. 221, fig. 4.

Stefan Kozakiewicz, Bernardo Bellotto genannt Canaletto (Recklinghausen, 1972), vol. I, pp. 86, 103-04; vol. II, p. 165, no. 206, fig. 206.

Ettore Camesasca, L'Opera Completa del Bellotto (Milan, 1974), fig. 122, p. 102, no. 122.

Alberto Rizzi, Bernardo Bellotto: Dresda Vienna Monaco (1747-66) (Venice, 1995), p. 72, no. 50.

Ownership History

Oliver Latham (d. 1850?), sold Christie's London, April 13, 1850, lot 27, to Mr. Hoare for 16 gns. William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp, London (died 1936) [according to archival photograph and stockbook of Arthur Tooth and Sons; information kindly provided by Simon Matthews]. Arthur Tooth, London, 1939; sold to Karl Haberstock, Berlin, April 1, 1939 [according to Tooth stockbook cited above and Ein- und Verkaufsbuch for July 1936 - December 1939 preserved in the Haberstock Stiftung, Augsburg, copy in curatorial file; the pair of paintings are also documented in the Warenkontrollbücher of 1939, 1940, and 1941; in the last book it is listed as on deposit in the Dresdener Bank, Tegernsee]; consigned by Haberstock to Julius Böhler, Munich in 1950, [letter of January 29, 2001 from Jutte Fianke, Böhler]; sold by Böhler to E. and A. Silberman, New York, in January 1951 [according to the letter from Jutta Fianke cited above]. Arthur C. Tate, New Canaan, CT, 1957 [according to Hartford 1957 exhib. cat.]. E. and A. Silberman Galleries, New York, by 1960 [advertised in Burlington Magazine, December 1960]; sold to the Art Institute, 1961.