View of Faraglioni near Capri

36: View of Faraglioni near Capri

August Kopisch
Breslau, now Wroclaw 1799 - 1853 Berlin

2019-S.25: Fondation Custodia
Rights held by: Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris

The scion of a bourgeois merchant family, Kopisch studied at academies in Prague and Vienna. He journeyed to Italy in 1824, and during his five-year stay, turned his attention to literature and achieved success as a writer of poetry and verse. While on a swimming expedition with his friend, painter Ernst Fries, in 1826, he is credited with rediscovering the Blue Grotto in Capri, a cave forgotten for centuries. Back in Berlin, he published a collection of translations of Italian folk songs (1838) and a translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy (1840).

Text written and researched by Michelle Bird National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

Oil on paper, mounted on wood panel
26.1 × 37.5 cm