Francesco Bernucca | Viaggio pittorico e storico ai tre laghi Maggiore, di Lugano, e Como, 1818, fine views of North Italian lakes

Francesco Bernucca (editor), Friedrich Lose (watercolourist), Carolina Lose née Von Schlieben (engraver).

Viaggio pittorico e storico ai tre laghi Maggiore, di Lugano, e Como. Milan: Presso Francesco Bernucca, Contrada dei Tre Re, No. 4091, 1818

Oblong 4to (247 x 317mm.), 50 hand-coloured aquatint plates printed in grisaille, many heightened in gum arabic, mostly by Carolina Lose after her husband Friedrich Lose, but several by A. Biasioli, D. K. Bonatti, Fumagalli, and others, some plates on paper watermarked "J Whatman 1816", each with a letterpress text-leaf in Italian, bound with an ink manuscript facsimile title page with dedication to Conte Enrico di Bellegarde, bound to style in green straight-grained morocco gilt

A SPLENDID ALBUM OF HAND-COLOURED VIEWS of three lakes in the Lombardy region of Northern Italy: Lakes Como, Maggiore and Lugano. This collection is an example of the picturesque journey, a genre in vogue at the beginning of the nineteenth century, equal parts tourist guidebook and fine art portfolio. The volumes typically comprised plates and extensive descriptive commentary, as if a plein air painter met a local tourist guide. The plates were issued uncoloured and printed in grisaille, but could be coloured by request, as all 50 plates are in this copy.

The plates were made in Milan by a married artist couple named Friedrich and Carolina Lose. Freidrich was born in Görlitz and studied in Leipzig with Adam Friedrich Oeser (1717–1799). Subsequently Lose lived in Paris. His wife, Carolina Lose, was a student of Moritz Retzsch (1779–1857) and the daughter of the Dresden court counselor Von Schlieben. Friedrich executed his landscapes in watercolour and Carolina carried out the aquatint engravings after them, and they both supervised and participated in the graceful hand-colouring of the plates.

Because these plates were frequently dispersed, albums like this are rare. According to Brunet, the work was first published in 1815, though most copies are dated 1818, and intended to have 50 colour plates. The plates in this copy are numbered up to 56 (skipping 5, 17, 20, 24, 44, 45), and bound out of order, as in the Bobins copy. Though some sources have suggested that 60 plates are called for, the actual counts in existing copies offered at auction in the post-war period have invariably been fewer, and the Bobins copy has 46 plates only. The present copy, with 50 coloured plates, is unmatched.

LITERATURE:

Bobins 1026, Brunet 5:1168