Lauritz Lyngbye was primarily a porcelain painter heavily influenced by G. F. Hetsch. But in 1829 he was also a private student of C. W. Eckersberg. Today, he is almost completely unknown.

The present painting is a copy of C. W. Eckersberg's painting from approx. 1815 with the same title (Emil Hannover no. 183). This painting is located at The National Gallery of Denmark (KMS1346). Eckersberg himself created an almost identical repetition of his painting, as well as the companion piece, “Monte Aventino”, to Count Bille-Brahe, Hvedholm, in 1818 and 1819 (Emil Hannover no. 229 and no. 246). Eckersberg's repetition was sold by Bruun Rasmussen in 2017 and acquired by the ARoS art museum in Aarhus.

Eckersberg writes the following about Lyngbye's painting in his diary 5 April 1830 (in Danish):

“Today, Lyngbye once more began painting here and worked on completing his version of the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome.”

According to the diary, Lyngbye had on 24 December 1829 completed a copy of Eckersberg's “Monte Aventino”, which is Eckersberg's companion piece to “Castel St. Angelo”. It, therefore, makes good sense that Lyngbye later also made the present copy.

Exhibited: Charlottenborg, Foreningen for National Kunst, “Italien skildret af danske malere”, 1968 no. 9. Here wrongly attributed to C. W. Eckersberg himself.

Provenance: The sisters Else, Rosa and Lilly Bugge (1968).