Perlberg – Mother and Daughter in front of the Temple of Neptune in Paestum

Friedrich Perlberg (1848 Nuremberg – 1921 Munich)

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER IN FRONT OF THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE IN PAESTUM

Watercolour on paper, 44.2 x 67.1
Signed lower right: F. Perlberg and inscribed lower left: Neptune’s Temple in Paestum

The accurate reproduction of the Temple of Poseidon in Paestum shows that Friedrich Perlberg was not only an accomplished landscape painter but also an excellent architectural painter. He added charm and local colour to the watercolour by means of the staffage figures, a mother and daughter in Campanian costume. In addition, the comparison of human size to architecture enabled him to depict the dimensions and grandeur of the temple ruins.

Perlberg was one of those travel painters who toured the world in search of exciting motifs. With the constant expansion of trade routes to the colonies, travel opportunities also improved for private individuals. Those who travelled wanted to have a picture as a souvenir. Those who could not leave home were delighted when the wider world came to them in the form of paintings. In addition to Italy, which no landscape painter in the 19th century could ignore, Perlberg painted Spain, Egypt, Nubia, Sudan and the USA, and in 1898 he travelled to the Holy Land in the entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II. His magnificent watercolours were highly sought after and were often reproduced as postcards.

The challenge for every Paestum painter was to capture the volume of the temples, the height of the columns and the magnificent overall impression without rendering the temples in a clumsy perspective as a mere accumulation of rows of columns. Perlberg tackled the problem by choosing a narrower section with a slight downward view and depth, without depicting too many individual columns in a row, thereby conveying a convincing impression of the height and size of the temple. His radiant, light-flooded depiction in beautiful colours can easily compete with the works of all his famous predecessors from the 18th and early 19th centuries.