(Dresden 1799–1866 Naples)
View of the Bay of Naples, Vesuvius in the background, signed C. Götzlof, oil on canvas, 46.5 x 73.5 cm, framed, (Rei)

Provenance:
Auction Lempertz Köln, 12th of December 1991;
lot 565;
private collection Bavaria.

Carl Wilhelm Götzloff trained at the Dresden Academy where his teachers included Caspar David Friedrich and Friedrich Christian Klaß. Götzloff moved to Rome in 1821 with a royal travelling scholarship where he joined Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld and circle. The artist praised Götzloff’s natural landscapes as “renditions of infinite faithfulness and tenderness”. Götzloff subsequently travelled repeatedly with colleagues in Southern Italy, with the coast near Sorrento and the Gulf of Naples becoming their preferred motifs. He settled in Naples permanently in 1826, soon after becoming appointed court painter to Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies. His talent continued to be recognised in his home country where his pupils included Prince Leopold I of Saxon-Coburg who, as the later King of Belgium, also purchased works by Götzloff. He was also made an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Art in Dresden. Enjoying an extraordinary and wide reputation, he was even awarded commissions by the Russian Empress and Prince Albrecht of Prussia.