Beschreibung:

Martinus Rørbye (b. Drammen 1803, d. Copenhagen 1848) “Parti af kryptkirken i klostret St. Benedette ved Subiaco”. The Crypt in the Monastery of San Benedetto in Subiaco. Dated 18/10 36. Unsigned. Oil on paper laid on canvas. 45×60 cm. Kursiv: Thorvaldsens Museum, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of Martinus Rørbye 1981, no. M120. Exhibited: Kunstforeningen February 1838. Charlottenborg 1838 no. 57. Charlottenborg, Foreningen 'Fremtiden', 1871 no. 180. Kunstforeningen, “Fortegnelse over M. Rørbyes arbejder”, 1905 no. 91. Nivaagaards Malerisamling and Ribe Kunstmuseum, “Martinus Rørbye. Det nære og det fjerne. Under sydlige himmelstrøg”, 2014–2015, no. 31, reproduced p. 40. Literature: Dyveke Helsted, Eva Henschen, Bjarne Tørnæs & Torben Melander, “Martinus Rørbye 1803–1848”, 1981, mentioned p. 116. Kasper Monrad, “Det nære og det fjerne” in the exhibition catalogue “Martinus Rørbye. Det nære og det fjerne", 2014, mentioned pp. 38–44, reproduced p. 40. Provenance: The estate auction of Martinus Rørbye 1849 no. 2. Here acquired by Scavenius, presumably landowner and politician Peder Brønnum Scavenius (1795–1868). His son landowner and politician Jakob Frederik Scavenius (1838–1915) (1871, 1905). Acquired from the Scavenius family by the present owner's father engineer Frithiof Eigid Hansen (1897–1985) in 1940. The original receipt from 1940 is included. During Rørbye’s Grand Tour from 1834–1837, he makes it to both Italy, Greece and Turkey, and on 26 August he arrives in the Italian town of Subiaco together with the German engraver and landscape painter Georg Heinrich Busse (1810–1868). With only a few breaks, Rørbye stays in Subiaco until 24 October, and it is from this period that one of Rørbye’s most famous and well-known works “Den læsende Abate” (Young Clergyman Reading) (The Art Institute, Chicago, inv.no. 2013.56) comes from. The day after Rørbye arrives on 27 August, he visits the two monasteries Santa Scholastica and San Benedetto, and already here he contemplates how well the San Benedetto monastery is suited as a motif for a painting, and he makes a couple of drawings while there. After an excursion to Tivoli on 12 and 13 September and the following days in Rome, he returns to Subiaco on 21 September to obtain permission to paint in the church, and on 22 September he begins the present study. Rørbye writes in his diary the same day: “I did, however, begin painting in San Benedetto today, and I believe it will turn out alright. With the help of a small present, I have made a friend out of the Sacristan, the gatekeeper is Swiss and soulful when I want to speak German with him, and Signor Luigi, one of the first priests, is a worldly man and extremely polite, so I can obtain anything that I might want. But unfortunately, I am not quite well, and the air in the cold mountain church is not good after the hot trip up the mountainside in the morning. Yet the place is far too picturesque to let oneself be scared away by these trials and tribulations.” On 18 October – after 28 days – Rørbye concludes the study with a cheerful toast together with the monks of the monastery: “Today, I finally completed my study of San Benedetto. I think it’s pretty decent. Brother Vinzensio treated me and Signore Glennie to a rather fine bottle of wine from the Cori valley.” Almost daily in the painting process, Rørbye describes not just the progression of the work with the painting in his diary, but also the everyday life in Subiaco, a couple of days with illness that delayed his work, his friendship with the priests in the church, the cold temperature in the church, and the friendly comradery with the other artists, who continue to arrive in the town and leave again. He was encouraged by some of these artist colleagues to show them the recently completed work, and Rørbye describes this with an understandable pride in his diary on 22 October: “Upon many suggestions, I felt inclined to present my study of San Benedetto to the other artists, a
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