Jacob Philipp Hackert

Jacob Philipp Hackert made his name painting Italy for the people who ruled it. A German who settled south of the Alps in 1768, he turned out precise, sunlit views of the coast and the countryside — the bay of Naples, the harbors of the kingdom, the vast palace at Caserta with Vesuvius smoking behind it. In 1786 Ferdinand IV, the king of Naples, made him his court painter.

His pictures are cool and exact, every leaf and rock in focus, closer to the calm order of classicism than to any stormy Romantic mood. That very clarity is part of why they were prized as faithful records of real places.

In March 1787 a German traveler making his way through Italy came to see him: Goethe, already famous as a poet. The two became friends, and Hackert gave him lessons in drawing. Years after the painter's death, Goethe gathered his notes and letters and published a full biography of him, in 1811.