Lot 1664 Dα

"As of 1773 Ludwig Philipp Strack was taught to paint by his uncle Johann Heinrich Tischbein the Elder, who was court painter at Kassel. Later in the same year this led him to be employed by hereditary prince Friedrich Ludwig von Oldenburg in Eutin as curator of his picture gallery. However, he left Eutin soon after to train further in Hamburg and Kassel. He travelled to Rome in the Spring of 1789 where he met his relative Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, who was at the time working on his “Goethe in der Campagna”. It was through him that Strack met Philipp Hackert in Naples. His acquaintance with the artist was to have a lasting influence on Strack's landscape painting that is also evident in the present, previously undiscovered, work.
It was painted when Strack was working at the court of Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig in Oldenburg. As commissions were sparse that year, Strack frequently returned to the motifs of Italian views and idealised southern landscapes, especially in his drawings. “The drawings and sketches that he brought with him from Italy were his greatest treasures in the following years”, writes Silke Francksen-Liesenfeld on the artist's repertoire of motifs and their significance for a great number of the works painted during his time in Oldenburg (see Francksen-Liesenfeld: Der Landschaftsmaler Ludwig Philipp Strack, 1761-1836. Biographie und Werkverzeichnis, 2008)."