View of La Cava
Carl Ludwig Hackert (1740 - 1796)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
circa 1788
Materials
Gouache on paper
Measurements
440 x 640 mm
Order this imageCollection
Attingham Park, Shropshire
NT 608969
Summary
Gouache on paper, View of La Cava by Carl Ludwig Hackert (1740-1796), signed: Carl Hackert and inscribed: A La Cave, circa 1788. A mountainous landscape with two figures on a path by a bridge in the foreground and romantic buildings in the middle distance. Carl was a younger brother of Jacob Philipp Hackert and followed him to Rome in 1772. In glazed and giltwood frame, narrow decorative leaf borders. There are no less than four different views of La Cava amongst the set of gouaches of scenes in the Kingdom of Naples found in a drawer in the Boudoir. La Cava, now known as Cava de’ Tirreni, was an originally Roman settlement that assumed major importance after 1058, when Prince Gisulfo II gave the Cluniac Benedictine abbots of the Abbey of La Trinità (founded by St Alferio Pappacarbone in 1011) immunity from all taxes, a free port at Vietri, and a monopoly in the sale of silk tapestry. At the height of its prosperity it had some 500 daughter foundations and churches, and its own fleet trading with the Levant. Its notably picturesque site and surroundings (which included a Capuchin monastery with a panoramic view over the city and the Valle Metelliana) were attractions for artists from the 18th century onwards.
Provenance
Believed to be 3rd Lord Berwick collection: William Noel-Hill, 3rd Baron Berwick (1773-1842). Attingham collection; bequeathed to the National Trust by Edith Teresa Hulton, Lady Berwick (1890-1972).
Marks and inscriptions
A La Cave (inscribed)
Makers and roles
Carl Ludwig Hackert (1740 - 1796), artist