Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00011015About the Artwork
Influenced by the landscapes of Claude Lorrain and seventeenth-century Dutch artists, the German Jakob Philipp Hackert was one of the most successful landscape artists based in late 18th-century Rome. His precise renderings of beautiful and historic sites attracted an international clientele on the European grand tour. This finished drawing depicts one of Italy's most spectacular natural phenomena, the Marmore waterfall at Terni, located north of Rome. Hackert carefully crafted the composition so that the detailed cliffs covered with foliage frame the tiered cascade from its soaring heights to its final emptying in the foreground. Hackert was known for traveling to the countryside on foot with large portfolios so that he could execute complete wash drawings like this one directly in nature. He probably drew this scene during one such sketching tour in 1776, or 1778.
Inscriptions
on fragments of old mount, now removed, in brown ink: No. 177. 13. [crossed out] / No: 17.; in graphite: No ["o" underlined] 27.; in graphite: 116
Provenance
1968: Galerie Gerda Bassenge (Auktionskatalog Nr. 11), Berlin, 23-27 April 1968, Nr. 581 ?-?: with Lucien Goldschmidt, New York ?-1982: with Sven H.A. Bruntjen, Woodside, CA 1982-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
The Year in Review for 1982. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 5-February 6, 1983). National Schools of Style. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 14-September 18, 1983). The German Tradition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 27-June 27, 1993). Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). Abraham-Louis-Rodolphe Ducros: A Swiss Painter in Italy. National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin 2, Ireland (organizer) (June 11-August 31, 2003). Treasures on Paper from the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 9-June 8, 2014).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Philipp Hackert (German, 1737–1807)
- Date
- 1776–78
- Medium
- pen and black ink, brush and brown wash, with white gouache and graphite
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 52.2 x 39.9 cm (20 9/16 x 15 11/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Dudley P. Allen Fund
- Accession no.
- 1982.40
More by Jacob Philipp Hackert in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00011015
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