Conrad Hoff, Basilika San Zeno Maggiore in Verona

Conrad Hoff, Basilika San Zeno Maggiore in Verona
Conrad Hoff, Basilica San Zeno Maggiore in Verona
View of the side aisle of the former abbey church in Verona, sparsely lit by diffuse light, with devout worshippers listening to a priest, Hyacinth Holland writes in "Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie": "... The last-mentioned year [1861] took our artist to Verona and Venice; immediately the painter was under the spell of this magical world, which ... still enmeshed and delighted every true son of the Muses. Now come all kinds of memories from "S. Zeno in Verona" (1862) and from the marketplace there, ...", fine glazed architectural painting with excellently captured light, oil on canvas, 1862, signed lower right "C. Hoff fc.", on the reverse of the stretcher old, partly illegible artist's label "Interior of the church of St. Zeno ..." and more recent pencil annotation with info on the painting and former purchase price "... 175 guilders ...", craquelure, mounted, restored, framed in a gold stucco frame of the time, folding dimensions approx. 62 x 49 cm. Artist's note: actually Gottfried Wilhelm Conrad Hoff. Genre, architecture and theatre painter (1816 Schwerin to 1883 Munich), first apprenticeship as a house painter, later trained as a decoration and theatre painter, from 1839 briefly studied at the academy of arts in Dresden, at the same time worked as a painter and theatre painter, finally travelled via Breslau, Krakow, Warsaw, Vienna to Munich, where he was employed as a decoration painter by Joseph Schwarzmann from autumn 1840, At the same time, from December 1841, he studied at the Munich Academy, supported by Franz Heindl, Gustav Seeberger, Wilhelm Lichtenheld, Dietrich Langko and Hanno Rhomberg, largely self-taught, he copied old masters in the Munich Pinakothek and studied architecture and perspective in Schleißheim Palace, from 1861 travels to Verona and Venice, purchases by King Ludwig II., the Grand Duke of Schwerin, King George V of Hanover, Queen Augusta of Prussia and Karl Theodor Prince of Bavaria, founder and 1872-80 chairman of the Munich Artists' Association, honoured with the Royal Prussian Crown Order III Class, the "Cross of Merit for the Years 1870 and 1871", the Officer's Cross of the French Legion of Honour, 1873 the Austrian Cross of Honour. Legion of Honour, in 1873 the Austrian Order of Franz Joseph and in 1879 the Bavarian Order of St Michael with a state pension, active in Munich, Source: Thieme-Becker, Saur "Bio-Bibliographisches Künstlerlexikon", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Boetticher, lists of pupils of the Dresden Academy and matriculation register of the Munich Academy.