Friedrich Nerly Lot n° 2339

Friedrich Nerly Ca' Foscari and Palazzo Giustinian on the Grand Canal Oil on canvas. 68.9 x 89.5 cm. Signed lower right: F. Nerly. Provenance Private collection, Italy. Friedrich Nerly was born Christian Friedrich Nehrlich in Erfurt. After the early death of his father, he was taken into the care of his mother's brother, who was a musician and lived in Hamburg, in 1815. He recognized the boy's artistic talent and arranged for him to take his first drawing lessons in the lithographic workshop of his friend Joachim Herterich. Of particular importance for the further development of the young Nehrlich was his later contact with Carl Friedrich von Rumohr, whose pupil he became in 1823. In the summer of 1827, Nerly accompanied his teacher on a journey that took him via the Harz Mountains, Weimar, Dresden and Munich, and finally to Italy. At the end of 1828 he travelled alone to Rome and stayed there for the next seven years. During this time, he changed his name to "Nerly" out of his enthusiasm for Italy. He also made numerous trips from Rome to other regions, the motifs of which can be found in his paintings. 1835 was a turning point in Nerly's life. He moved to Venice, became a member of the art academy there, and married a Venetian woman with whom he started a family. Views of Venice, at all times of the day and year and in the most varied lights, since then became the pictorial motif to which he devoted himself until the end of his life. Like the Piazzetta, views of the Grand Canal with its famous palazzi, as in the present painting, were also part of a highly sought-after Venetian pictorial repertoire. With bravura, Nerly, Ippolito Caffi or Carlo Grubacs celebrated in their paintings the unique beauty of the city on the lagoon and thus served extremely successfully the great demand for these images among the public.