During our recent visit to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., a painting in Gallery 31 grabbed my attention: The Fortress of Königstein by Bernardo Bellotto.
It was the fortress itself that first caught my eye, with its rugged walls and crumbling facades, but I found intriguing elements wherever I looked. A mine shaft! Shepherd's cabins! Is that rain in the distance? I stood close enough to the nearly eight-foot wide painting that I had to turn my head to look at the view toward the bluffs mirroring the fortress on the right.
I wasn't familiar with the artist or the location. The sense of discovery contributed to this painting overshadowing the Vermeers and Sargents in the gallery, for this visit at least.
Back at our hotel, I learned from the Internet that the painting was part of a set of five and that all five had been exhibited together just last year at the National Gallery in London. An exhibition catalog was available... for $8.50!
Not only did the catalog allow me to see reproductions of the other four views in the series, it also outlined Bellotto's career in a way that captured the life of a court painter in the eighteen century. In fewer than 100 pages, with copious illustrations, the book manages to provide a fascinating explanation of Bellotto's working methods, an historical account of the fortress, and insight into the art market as it tracks the provenance of the paintings.
The painting I saw in Washington is more properly titled The Fortress of Königstein from the North-West, to differentiate it from the other two external views (from the north and south-west). I appreciate that my painting is the one that "locates the fortress in its wider context."
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