(Saaralben 1788–1861 Munich)
Greece, resting on the way to the market, monogrammed, dated C. v. Hdk 10/1841, oil on panel, 51 x 69 cm, framed, (Rei)

Provenance:
Antiques Erich Mautner, Vienna 1968;
Private Collection Vienna.

Compare:
Friedrich von Boetticher, Malerwerke des 19. Jahrhunderts, vol. I, 2, Hofheim am Taunus 1979, p. 504, no. 32 and no. 34.

Carl Wilhelm von Heideck was a German painter, officer and graphic artist. As the son of the military major and amateur draughtsman Hartmann Heidegger, he soon began drawing lessons with Johann Heinrich Meyer, Johann Kaspar Huber and Konrad Gessner in Zurich. From 1808 onwards, he attended military school in Munich, which was followed by a military career as an artillery lieutenant and border commissioner that saw him deployed in several wars and campaigns. During this period, he exclusively created watercolours and gouaches. In 1815, he took lessons in landscape painting with Johann Christian von Mannlich, turning to oil painting from the following year onwards.
In 1823, he displayed his work at an art exhibition in Munich, and was appointed an honorary member of the Academy one year later. This award was followed by others in the military field, although he left the armed forces in 1829 for health reasons. Afterwards, Heideck undertook a trip to Rome before he devoted himself completely to painting. At this time, he mainly painted battle pictures with scenes from the wars in Spain and Greece, but he also created genre pictures and some vistas of cities and landscapes.
During his trips abroad, Heideck crafted watercolours and preliminary studies, to which he added precise information about the location and notes on colouring so that he could subsequently turn them into oil paintings upon his return home. The resulting heroised, idealised images of wartime reality aligned with the tastes of both the aristocracy and the bourgeois public, as well as the tastes of the King of Bavaria.
His painting style is characterised by the particular smoothness of the painted surface, its intense luminosity and the reproduction of light as emanating from all sides, which also influenced other artists of his time. In addition to this, his drawings bear witness to his extraordinary interest in the ancient monuments of Greece and Italy.