In June 1838, as part of his extended Italian sojourn (1835–43), Hansen visited the Hellenic complex at Paestum, about fifty miles south of Naples. To compose this view, he stood within the so-called Temple of Neptune, using its massive fluted Doric columns to frame the distant Temple of Athena. This study owes a debt to Hansen’s early training as an architect, a career he abandoned in order to study with the leading lights of the golden age of Danish painting, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg and his pupil Christen Købke.
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Inscription: Signed with monogram (lower right): CH
Mrs. Christmas Dirckink-Holmfeld, Valby, Copenhagen (in 1901); private collection (until 1984; sale, Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, Auktion 463, August 22–September 6, 1984, no. 3); sale, Kunsthallen, Copenhagen, Auktion 473, November 19–22, 1996, no. 90; private collection, Denmark (until 1998; sale, Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, Auktion 650, October 6, 1998, no. 205, sold for 150,000 Danish kroner, or $24,213 hammer price); [Artemis Fine Arts, London, from at least 1999; sold to Thaw]; Eugene Victor Thaw, Santa Fe (by 2002–2007)
New York. Artemis Fine Arts, Inc. "Danish Paintings of the Golden Age," April 21–May 28, 1999, no. 7 (as "Two Columns of Neptune's Temple at Paestum," lent by a private collector, USA).
New York. Pierpont Morgan Library. "The Thaw Collection: Master Drawings and Oil Sketches, Acquisitions Since 1994," September 27, 2002–January 19, 2003, no. 100.
Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art. "The Romantic Prospect: Plein Air Painters, 1780–1850," June 22–August 15, 2004, no. 66.
Sydney. Art Gallery of New South Wales. "Plein-air Painting in Europe, 1780–1850," September 4–October 31, 2004, no. 66.
Melbourne. National Gallery of Victoria. "Plein-air Painting in Europe, 1780–1850," November 19, 2004–January 16, 2005, no. 66.
The Hague. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis. "Dreaming of Italy," March 11–June 25, 2006, no. 20.
Emil Hannover. Maleren Constantin Hansen: en studie i dansk kunsthistorie. Copenhagen, 1901, p. 305, no. 139, dates it June 1838.
Suzanne Ludvigsen. Danish Paintings of the Golden Age. Exh. cat., Artemis Fine Arts, Inc. New York, 1999, unpaginated, no. 7, ill. (color).
John Russell. "Art Review; Golden Days for Painting in Denmark." New York Times (May 14, 1999), p. E38.
William M. Griswold inThe Thaw Collection: Master Drawings and Oil Sketches, Acquisitions Since 1994. Exh. cat., Pierpont Morgan Library. New York, 2002, pp. 216–17, no. 100, ill. (color).
Charlotte Gere inPlein-Air Painting in Europe, 1780–1850. Exh. cat., Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art. Shizuoka, 2004, pp. 130–31, no. 66, ill. (color).
Henk van Os. Dreaming of Italy. Exh. cat., Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague. Zwolle, The Netherlands, 2006, pp. 90, 125, no. 20, fig. 30 (color).
Esther Bell. "Catalogue Raisonné of the Thaw Collection." Studying Nature: Oil Sketches from the Thaw Collection. Ed. Jennifer Tonkovich. New York, 2011, p. 129, no. 83, ill. (color), calls it "Columns of the Temple of Neptune at Paestum" and dates it 1838.
Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (Danish, Blåkrog 1783–1853 Copenhagen)
ca. 1814–15
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