Carl Vilhelm Balsgaard
(1812 - Copenhagen - 1893)

The Basilica and Monastery of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome, seen from the Villa Wolkonsky
c.1872-3

Oil on canvas
56 x 41.5 cm

Signed lower left with the initials C B

This landscape by the Danish painter Carl Vilhelm Balsgaard is distinguished by remarkable compositional structure and the unconventional originality of the viewpoint. The viewer's eye is led from a secluded corner of the park at the Villa Wolkonsky over a sun-drenched landscape towards the southern slope of the then unspoilt Esquiline Hill. The facade of the Basilica of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, one of the seven pilgrimage churches of Rome, is at the centre of the image. It is partly obscured by the rich foreground vegetation.

Balsgaard was drawn to the artistic centres of Europe at an early age. On his travels he visited Berlin, Paris and London. He was in Italy in 1872-3 and spent a number of weeks in Rome, where he executed the present painting. He enjoyed a successful career as a porcelain and still-life painter and his portraits were much in demand at the Danish Court. In its attention to detail the landscape is a fine example of his mature style.

The foreground is dominated by the massive form of a precisely delineated agave. The luxuriant green plant seems to well up from the barren ground with extraordinary vitality. The artist's concentration on this element of the composition underlines his love of the still-life genre.[1]

In the middle ground is the fourth-century Basilica and at its side, the Carthusian monastery. Tradition has it that the section of the Cross bearing the inscription INRI is preserved here. On the horizon is the distant silhouette of the Appenine mountains. Like many artists from northern Europe, Balsgaard was fascinated by the effects of southern light. This is convincingly demonstrated in the present painting.

[1] Ferdinand Meldahl, P. Johansen, Det kongelige Akademi for de skjønne Kunster 1700-1904, København 1904, p. 368f.
F. Hendriksen, Kjøbenhavnske Billeder fra det nittende Århundrede, København, 1924-27, p. 24.
Palle Lauring, Billeder af Danmarks historie, 1972, p. 111, 115.
C.W. Eckersberg og hans elever: udstilling i anledning af 200 året for kunstnerens fødsel, exhib. cat., Statens Museum for Kunst, København, 1983, p. 56.
Erik Mortensen, Kunstkritikkens og kunstopfattelsens historie i Danmark, København, 1990, vol. I, p. 142, 153, 177f.