Carl Wilhelm Kolbe – La Solitude (after Salomon Gessner) 1808-1809
etching, image 20.7 x 29.3 cm sheet 47 x 62.5 cm
Unframed – Price £300
Inscriptions below image: ‘Peint par Salomon Gessner’ – far left; ‘Gravé par Guil Kolbe’ – far right. ‘La Solitude du Cabinet de Mr Le major du Muralt à Zurich’ – centre.
Reference: Martens 306 IV/IV Jentsch 320
Condition: Rich impression on a sheet with wide margins. In perfect condition.
Carl Wilhelm Kolbe (1757/59 – 1835) was one of the most remarkable printmakers of his generation. Nicknamed Oak Kolbe for his use of striking oak trees in his compositions, he did not produce his first etchings until the mid 1790s. He was teaching French at the newly formed academy in Dessau when he completed his first portfolios, mainly of landscapes, before his appointment as engraver to the court of Leopold IV, Duke of Anhalt. In 1808 he was invited to visit Zurich by the family of Salomon Gessner, (1730 – 1788), a renowned Swiss painter, graphic artist, government official, newspaper publisher, and poet, who is perhaps best known for his Idylls. They commissioned him to make etchings from Gessner’s compositions. La Solitude is one of the etchings that resulted from this commission. Many of Gessner’s paintings, drawings and prints are idylls, fantastic compositions that illustrate Virgillian landscapes filled with mythological figures. Kolbe’s own compositions often feature herdsmen with their flocks passing through oversized fauna. Technically, Kolbe is a superb etcher, the fulsome amount of detail, play of light and dreamy atmosphere coming from an extraordinary imagination.