Johan Wenzel Peter

Exhibitions:

• Birds & Beasts

Essay:

Peter was born in Carlsbad, a spa town in the west Bohemian kingdom of the Holy Roman Empire (the place is now called Karlovy Vary and forms part of the Czech Republic). Peter began his career as an armourer, engraver of medals and painter of decorative objects in Vienna. He travelled to Rome in 1774 to train as a sculptor and remained there for the rest if his life, becoming a professor of Art at the Academy of Saint Luke.

Peter received his first commission, for a terracotta bas-relief with many figures, from Frederick Augustus Hervey, Bishop of Derry and, from 1779, 4th Earl of Bristol. However, Peter grew dissatisfied with sculpture as a medium, and turned instead to painting animals, at which he excelled brilliantly. His drawing is always sharp and accurate and his attention to fur and feather exceptional.

From 1778 he worked alongside Christoph Unterberger on the decorative scheme of the Villa Borghese, covering the entrance hall with a fresco depicting one hundred and sixty animals, all based on studies from life.

-

The most important early collections of Peter’s work have been dispersed: that of the Earl-Bishop following its confiscation in Rome by the French in 1798, and that of the Borghese family during the nineteenth century. For this reason it is rarely possible to establish an early provenance for Wenzel's paintings, including the present work. It was executed on a canvas of standard English dimensions and its plain background relates to works by George Stubbs, such as Whistlejacket (1762; National  Gallery, London) and by Jacques-Laurent Agasse, such as the Head of a Bay Horse (sold Christie’s, London, 24 Nov. 1998, lot 94). It was presumably a commission executed for an English visitor to Rome.

Provenance:

Private collection, U.K.
With Simon C. Dickinson Ltd, London, where purchased by the previous owner.