(Basle 1813–1865 Frascati)
View of Rome as seen from Monte Mario, signed, dated J. J. Frey 1850, oil on canvas, 98 x 135 cm, framed, (Rei)

Provenance:
Auction Van Ham, 9 April 2005, lot 1787.

This commanding view depicts Rome from Monte Mario. One of the most popular viewpoints, it shows the famous sights of the city in the distance. The viewer’s eye is drawn along the road in the foreground and the curve of the Tiber in the middle ground to the city and its monuments beyond. Dated 1850, this picture is one more fine example of the more luminous and colourful style he adopted after his trip to Egypt in 1842. Two other versions by the artist are known: a smaller work exhibited in Rome in 2000 (Vedute di Roma, fine XVIII-inizio XX secolo, Galleria Paolo Antonacci, Rome, no. 8) and onother one exhibited in Milan in 2005 (Imago urbis romae. L’immagine di Roma in età moderna, Milan, 2005, no. 22).
Johann Jakob Frey studied initially under his father and then with the Swiss history painter, Hieronymus Hess, before moving to Paris, where he copied Dutch landscapes of the seventeenth-century. In 1834 he settled in Munich, and there, thanks to the connections of his teacher Hess, he entered the artistic circle of Emilie Lindner, the Basle benefactor and patron of young artists in Munich. Her financial support and strong ties with the colony of German artists in Rome enabled Frey to move there permanently in 1835. From 1842 to 1845 he took part in the Royal Prussian expedition to Egypt, where he was the official landscape and architectural painter.

from a Bavarian private collection