View of Pirna with the Fortress of Sonnenstein

c. 1760

Bernardo Bellotto (Italian, 1721–1780)

Well trained by his uncle, Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto quickly established his own reputation as a gifted view painter. By 1746 he was appointed court painter to the elector of Saxony in Dresden, who commissioned him to produce cityscapes. Bellotto was subsequently asked to create 11 large-scale paintings of the nearby town of Pirna; the present picture is a reduced but otherwise exact replica of one of those celebrated works. Exalted in Bellotto’s cold, crystalline light, the fortress of Sonnenstein presides over the scene from its hilltop. In the left foreground, townsfolk congregate at a small obelisk that bears the arms of Saxony.

Status: On View, Gallery 217
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Bernardo Bellotto
Title: View of Pirna with the Fortress of Sonnenstein
Place: Italy (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1755–1765
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed center forground: Haupt... lei... (only partly legible) / 1752 (on a sign beneath the coat of arms of the Elector of Saxony)
Dimensions: 49.3 × 79.5 cm (19 3/8 × 31 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Clyde M. Carr Fund
Reference Number: 1961.44
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/12895/manifest.json

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.

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.

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.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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