ADRIAN ZINGG (1734-1816)

A VIEW FROM BORSBERG NEAR PILLNITZ, LOOKING OVER THE ELBE VALLEY TOWARDS SAXON SWITZERLAND
Dated in the plate on the weather vane u.l. 1804 (?)
Etched outlines with brown wash on laid paper (cut within margins, concealed by mount)
26.5 x 37 cm | 46 x 57 cm (Framed)
 
LITERATURE:
Petra Kuhlmann-Hodick, Claudia Schnitzer, Bernhard von Waldkirch (eds.), Adrian Zingg, Pioneer of Romanticism, Dresden (2012)
 
 
 
 
Another impression of this view can be found in the Dresden Kupferstich-Kabinett (inv. no. A 131966). Dresden also hold another version without any hand-colouring, with simply the etched outlines (inv. no. A 1912-290).  
 
 
Adrian Zingg was born in St Galen, Switzerland, the son of a gunsmith, and apprenticed first with the Zurich printmaker Johann Rudolf Holzhalb. Following his studies, he moved in 1757 to Bern, where he worked with Johann Ludwig Aberli, producing picturesque printed views of the Alps and Swiss countryside. Two years later, seeking to deepen his experience and broaden his horizons, Zingg travelled to Paris with his friend the medalist Johann Caspar Mörikofer. Here he worked alongside Johann Georg Wille, a talented draughtsman, printmaker and art dealer, who had become one of the premier portrait engravers of France by this time and amassed considerable wealth. 
 
Having established his own reputation and built up a network of clients and friends in the studio of Wille, Zingg was invited by Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn, a German art historian, diplomat and important collector, to teach at the newly-established Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in 1766. Zingg swiftly befriended the older Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich, who acted as something of a mentor, and Anton Graff, a fellow Swiss artist at the Academy. He took his first hike through the nearby Elbsandsteingebirge – a low mountain range on both sides of the River Elbe– in the summer of 1766, a trip which appears to have had a considerable formative influence on Zingg from this point on. In the ensuing years, Zingg made a systematic exploration of the landscapes of Saxony, Bohemia, Thuring and Brandenburg, building up an impressive stock of landscape and nature studies from which he could then create prints and more finished drawings or paintings.
 
Zingg’s reputation flourished quickly after his arrival in Dresden: he was appointed a corresponding member of the Academy there in 1769, was made a full member of the Berlin Academy in 1787, and in 1803 was appointed to the Chair of Landscape Drawing at the Dresden Academy. He played a considerable role in influencing the beginnings of the German Romantic landscape tradition and, with the benefit of hindsight, was one of the few artists to absorb both the Swiss tradition of landscape printmaking and the German taste and gift for imbuing these views with both romance and drama. 
 
 
Zingg maintained a commercial workshop during his time at the Dresden Academy of course, in which many of his drawings were turned into ‘outline etchings’ which were then coloured by hand with brown and sepia washes. Broadly speaking, Zingg offered two categories to his customers, with a range in a smaller format that were more affordable, and larger works such as the present one. This particular view shows a broad swathe of the Saxon-Swiss countryside, with Königsstein visible in the background. The romantic inclusion of tourists gazing through a telescope in the upper left is an imaginative addition, and one that frames the scene, together with the elegantly dressed family in the foreground.