• J.C. Dahl

  1788-1857

St. Peter's Square in Rome by Moonlight

• Production Date

  1821

• Type of Work / Object

  Painting

• Location

  • Not on display

• Inventory Number

  B181

• Catalogue Number

  B181

• Catalogue Level / Collection

  Thorvaldsen's Collections > Collection of Paintings (B)

Explanation

• During Dahl’s stay in Rome, he and Thorvaldsen got to know each other. With its focus on the architecture, the picture is atypical of the landscape artist I.C. Dahl and it must be assumed that it was commissioned by Thorvaldsen as a companion piece to the daylight picture with the same motif by Eckersberg, which Thorvaldsen had already acquired. Thorvaldsen might well have been eager in this way to acquire a companion piece for his collection, made by a different Scandinavian artist, though the pattern for Dahl’s picture is an etching by the German Franz Ludwig Catel from 1818. Thorvaldsen modelled Dahl’s portrait bust at the same time as the small picture of St Peter’s Square was being created. No other painter interested Thorvaldsen so much as Dahl, and there was no one else by whom he acquired so many works over the years.

Motif / Theme

• Nature > Moon
• Location > Town > Rome
• Location > Country > Italy

Additional Catalogue Information