View of the Garden of the Villa Borghese in Rome
C.W. Eckersberg (Danish, 1783–1853)
1814
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- height 28 cm, width 32.5 cm, height 37.4 cm, width 41.4 cm
- Culture
- Danish
- Museum
- SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark: SMK waives its rights in this photograph, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
About this work
In his view of the gardens of the Villa Borghese, Eckersberg made a section of a dilapidated, unremarkable eighteen-century aqueduct the main subject of his painting. What is more, the classical reliefs seen on the wall are foreshortened to the point of becoming unrecognisable. Eckersberg used the oblique wall to create a sense of depth in the picture, but even so his approach is quite unusual: the aqueduct and the trees in the background completely impede the view. The painting was presumably created in the summer of 1814, around the time when Eckersberg began painting out of doors. The rendition of the sunlit and shaded areas suggests direct, immediate on-site observation. A preliminary drawing for this painting exists, dated 1814 (SMK).
