This beautiful early 19th-century oil painting attributed to French artist Louis Bélanger (1756-1816) depicts an extensive Italianate view with picturesque classical ruins, river, hilltop convent, and figures. Bélanger was a distinguished painter of landscapes.
Beyond the tinted horizon, a slumberous sun casts its final glow across a scene of untarnished Arcadian bliss. A temple, reminiscent of Tivoli’s Vesta, stands majestically amid foliage, while a distant convent gleams with illumination. It’s a romanticised vignette of imagined pastoral life, where the waters sparkle like crystalline prose and the abundant air seems to shimmer and blur. In the foreground, a figure holds a net aloft while a boy stands beyond. Perhaps it’s a father teaching his enthusiastic son the age-old craft of fishing.
“Breathless with adoration; the broad sun, is sinking down in its tranquillity.” William Wordsworth.
Pleasing visions of the Italian countryside, particularly the Roman Campagna, were popular with aristocratic young gentlemen seeking to furnish their homes with mementoes from their Grand Tour. The majority of these views were essentially a collage of sketches stitched together for artistic effect. The artists would usually draw amid nature before returning to the studio to complete their finished compositions.
A key figure in the evolution of misty Italianate landscapes was Baroque French artist, Claude Lorrain (1600-1682). His, now iconic backlit masterpieces were designed to elevate the scenery to grand proportions. Louis Bélanger would’ve been more than aware of his oeuvre. Lorrain, too, combined numerous sketches to great effect in his final works, which exalted the ‘pastoral life’ and were/are exceedingly sought after.
It appears that Bélanger painted this view on several occasions but with minor alterations in each version. In another, the convent has been replaced with a medieval castle - with the figures different in each. It’s likely that he produced numerous drawings during his time in Rome (c.1780-1785) and adapted these as the basis of his oils. One of the comparable views is fully signed, with a second being monogrammed ‘lb’.
Born in Paris, he trained under Louis-Gabriel Moreau (1740-1806), a landscape painter, and Francesco Casanova (1727-1803), known for battle scenes, before widening his sphere of reference through exploration. He travelled through France, the Alps, and Switzerland initially, and stayed for five years in Rome.
Following this extensive education, he returned to Paris but was forced to flee to London, as many did, due to the Revolution. Here he remained for around eight years, exhibiting at the Royal Academy during this time, before settling in Stockholm, Sweden.
Aside from his tranquil Italian views, Bélanger is known predominantly for depicting gnarled portrayals of the Swedish countryside, which are altogether more rugged and lively. He aimed to produce a large-scale work titled ‘Voyage Pittoresque de la Suéde’, consisting of numerous engravings, but it was sadly never completed.
His period in Stockholm brought with it several honours including membership of the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts and his appointment as ‘First Painter’ to Gustaf IV Adolf, King of Sweden. Today, alongside the eminent Elias Martin ARA (1739-1818), he’s considered as one of the country’s most significant contributors to the evolution of landscape painting. Carl Johan Fahlcrantz (1774-1861) was one of his pupils.
He’s represented in numerous public collections including at the National Museum in Stockholm, Gothenburg Art Museum, Malmö Museum, and Norrköpings Art Museum.
Held in an early 19th-century neo-classical gilt frame.
Learn more about Louis Bélanger in our directory.
Medium: Oil on canvas
Overall size: 29½” x 23½” / 75cm x 60cm
Year of creation: c. 1810
Labels & Inscriptions: ‘The Convent of St Peters’ inscribed on the reverse.
Provenance: Private collection, UK.
Condition: Cleaned. Revarnished. Canvas relined. Faint stretcher marks. Historic areas of restoration including in-painting. Craquelure throughout. The paint layer is stable. Frame with various marks and showing its age.
Artist’s auction maximum: £41,073 for ‘View Over Stockholm From Djurgårdslandet’, Oil on canvas, Stockholm, Sweden, 3 June 2014.
Our reference: BRV2109
