Title
VUE DE LA CAVERNE DE SAINT BEAT sur le Lac de Thun : De_die_ a_ Milord Vicomte de Beauchamp Par son tre_s humble et tre_s Obeissant Serviteur Hentzi. / Wolff pinx.t ; Descourtis sculp.t.
Creator
Descourtis, Charles-Melchior, 1753-1820, printmaker.
Publication details
[Paris] : [Se vend a_ Paris, Rue des deux Portes St. Sauveur chez Mr. Graff], [1785]
Physical details
1 print : hand-coloured aquatint and etching ; sheet 28.9 x 33.5 cm, on support 41 x 51.7 cm.
Description
Two women and five men rest at the entrance to St Beatus Caves while two servants prepare some food in a stove in the foreground, with another man sitting at the top of a waterfall beyond and mountains, forest and lake in the background.
Place
Thun (Switzerland)
Additional information
Bound in a volume with title-page, preface by Albrecht von Haller, introduction, explanation of the plates (7 pages of text), frontispiece with Henzi's dedication to the King hand-written on the mount, and nineteen hand-coloured views framed by black lines and pasted on blue gilded mounts. The plates relate to a work first commissioned by publisher Abraham Wagner with text by Jacob Samuel Wyttenbach in about 1776. The project, consisting of forty-two plates, was interrupted by Wagner's death in 1782 and continued in 1785 by Henzi and Yntema (see B. Wismer et al., Caspar Wolf. Gipfelstu_rmer Zwischen Aufkla_rung und Romantik, exh. cat., Du_sseldorf, 2009, pp. 36-61). The original painting by Wolf entitled 'Die Beatusho_hle mit einer Reisegesellschaft', is currently in the Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau (see Wismer, op. cit., cat. no. 61, pp. 99, 180 and W. Raeber, Caspar Wolf 1735-1783. Sein Leben und Sein Werk, Frankfurt a.M., Salzburg and Munich, 1979, cat. no. 271). Dedication contains coat of arms of Francis Seymour-Conway, first marquess of Hertford and Viscount Beauchamp.
Other persons
Wolf, Caspar, 1735-1783, artist.
Shelfmark
Maps 8.Tab.c.6.