Ehrenberg (Ernberg) / Lech – Beaumont, Jean François Sir Albanis de (Chambéry 1755 – 1812). The Barriere at the Castle of Ehremberg. Alps massif centred on Ehrenberg Castle. On the right the High Castle, on the left at the foot of the Falkenberg accross the pass isolated farms and right in front a peasant driving a cart-load home. Aquatint printed in brown by Cornelis Apostool (1762 Amsterdam 1844). 1792. Inscribed: A. Beaumont del. / C. Apostool sculp. / Published as the Act directs Jan^y 1. 1792. by T. & G. Egerton Whitehall, for the Author, title as above. 31.5 x 44.8 cm.

Especially  fine  mountain  landscape  of the former Ehrenberg Castle – then strongest fortifications of the Ausserfern, consisting of Ehrenberg Defile, fortress, High Castle, and Fort Claudia – at the River Lech on the road from Fussen to the Upper Inn Valley, the old Via Claudia Augusta and salt road, on the northern border of Tyrol. – Wide-margined impression of the 1^st edition on buff Whatman paper.

Sir Albanis distinguishes himself as draughtsman, engraver in aquatint, and landscapist as well as architect. Hailing from the Piedmont he was naturalized in England. Egg says on him:

“ Publishes a large number of views from Italy and the Alps between 1787 and 1806 which he partly engraves himself in aquatint manner and partly lets be engraved by Cornelis Apostool. His engravings belong

to  the  earliest  representations  of  pure  mountain  landscapes  from  the  Tyrol  … ”

Apostool, painter, draughtsman and engraver, but, like Goethe, rather to be reckoned among the so-called amateur artists, received his education at the Amsterdam Drawing Academy (1784-1786) by the landscapist Hendrik Meijer, whom subsequently he accompanied to England, where he lived many years in London. His ca. 80

fine  landscape  aquatints  esteemed  by  the  connoisseurs ,

many of them after Netherlandish masters and the Alpine travel sketches of Sir Albanis de Beaumont, were published in several sets between 1790 and 1795. They are the result of that period artistically so extraordinarily fertilizing to him. In later years artistically he worked still only from diversion.

Simultaneously, and still later, too, he had carried out orders of the Netherlandish government on behalf of which he went also to New York and France.

1807 finally back in Amsterdam he became the first director of the Royal Amsterdam Museum (1808) and member of the Royal Institute for Sciences, Literature, and Fine Arts. 1816 Knight of the Order of the Netherlandish Lion.
Offer no. 15,245 / EUR  670. / export price EUR  637. (c. US$ 819.) + shipping

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