Victor Emil Janssen
1807 - Hamburg - 1845
Study of the Model “Nicolo”, 1835
Oil on paper
42 x 25,5 cm
Inscribed lower right: Modello Nicolo Via Greg ... Rom 1835 ...
EXHIBITED:
„Blick aus dem Fenster – Gemälde und Zeichnungen der Romantik und des Biedermeier“, Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Dortmund, Schloss Cappenberg, July – October 1956, no. 163
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Germany
The oeuvre of Viktor Emil Janssen is not adequately documented. In her monograph Victor Emil Janssen 1807-1845, Ein Hamburger Maler der Romantik (Hamburg 1988), Renate Klee Gobert noted that many of his best works are considered lost and no written sources have survived. Part of his estate was discovered by the Norwegian painter Bernt Grönvold among the works of Friedrich Wasmann at an antique dealer's in Merano, South Tyrol, in the 1890s. Among them were Janssen's two self-portraits, which Albert Lichtwark acquired for the Hamburger Kunsthalle together with several drawings. Wasmann and Janssen, who shared an apartment in Rome from 1833 to 1835, produced numerous studies of Italian models and peasants. Nicolo was a well-known artist's model in the Nazarene circle at that time.