JANUS LA COUR (1837-1909)

A VIEW OVER LAKE ALBANO WITH CASTEL GANDOLFO
Dated l.r. 18...[?]
Oil on canvas
31.5 x 45 cm
 
PROVENANCE:
Anonymous sale, Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, 02.06.1999, Lot 419;
With Kunsthandel Thomas Le Claire, Hamburg;
Private collection, South Germany
 
 
 
 
The present view may have been painted in 1866 or 1868, with two further views from the same perspective, showing the Papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, dating from both these years: the former was sold at Bruun Rasmussen, Bredgade, 24.02.2015, Lot 10; and the latter is in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (inv. no. KMS1713). 
 
 
Born in 1837, Janus la Cour spent much of his youth near Aarhus. Between 1857 and 1864 he attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and for part of this period lived with the great Danish landscape painter P.C. Skovgaard (1817-75). Despite the age gap, the two men remained lifelong friends. Skovgaard introduced La Cour to the practice of landscape painting, although the younger artist was always less of a romanticist than his mentor: La Cour found endless fascination in the realities of nature, with its subtle shifts of mood and emotion, and was not interested in idealising what he saw, preferring to capture its minute detail and exact atmosphere. 
 
Unmarried, and not short of funds, La Cour dedicated himself solely to his art. His style changed little from the 1870s to 1890s, though towards the end of his career he experimented with a looser touch. By the time he died in 1909, he had participated in international exhibitions in Stockholm, Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Paris, Chicago and London. Today his work is represented in all the important Scandinavian museums, with the AROS Kunstmuseum at Aarhus holding the most impressive collection of his works.