Jakob Philipp Hackert

1737 Prenzlau – 1807 San Piero di Careggio

Jakob Philipp Hackert, the landscape painter par excellence of Goethe’s day, made a name for himself shortly after his move to Rome in 1768. His stay in the Eternal City lasted a total of eighteen years, in which time Hackert justified his reputation as the most significant interpreter of landscape of his era. In 1769, shortly after his arrival in Rome, Hackert began systematically exploring the landscape of his new home country in search of inspiration and motifs for his painting. Hackert was a tireless traveller with a passion for knowledge. In March 1786, Hackert was appointed court painter by King Ferdinand IV of Naples – one of the last absolute rulers of the epoch – and he moved to the south Italian capital that very summer. It was in Naples too, in the spring of 1787, that Hackert had his first, momentous encounter with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The great man of letters was to remain a lifelong friend, writing the first biography of Hackert’s life after the painter’s death in 1807.