Chromolithography, signed on the underside: "E. Hildebrandt" and inscribed ld.: "Suez".
Dimensions in frame: 46x59 cm (25x36 cm)
Rare print from a portfolio published by Rudolf Wagner in Berlin, 1864.
Eduard Hildebrandt (Danzig 1818 - 1868 Berlin) German marine and landscape painter, traveler, Danziger, in his early youth a helper of his father, a room painter. At the age of less than twenty, he went to Berlin, where he became a pupil of the marine painter Wilhelm Krause (1803-64) and made a study trip with the professor to Rügen and then to the Mediterranean coasts of France, Italy and Greece (1838-1840). In 1840 for he also traveled to Scandinavia, England and Scotland, and the following year to Paris, where he studied for six months in the studio of Eugene Isabey (1803-1886), and one of his paintings was honored at the official Salon. Upon his return to Berlin in 1843, he came into contact with the traveler, naturalist and geographer Alexander von Humboldt, who introduced him to the court, Frederick William IV, King of Prussia. The latter commissioned him to paint a view of Rio de Janeiro. The trip to South America turned into an extended tour of North America as well (1844/45), from where the artist brought back numerous landscape studies, views of cities, ports, etc. In the following years the artist was almost constantly on the road, visiting the Canary Islands, Madeira, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sicily, Egypt, Palestine, Turkey and Greece. In 1856 he even reached the Arctic, and in 1862 he made a voyage around the world, visiting Trieste, Suez, Aden, India, Tibet, Siam, China, Hong-Kong, Singapore, Macau, Japan, the Philippines, the Pacific Islands, Central America, the United States. In 1864 he published "Reise Um Die Erde" in Berlin, a work containing chromolithographs of his travels around the world. He painted in oil and watercolor. His art was widely appreciated - in 1855 the artist became a professor at the Berlin Academy, and several of his paintings were purchased by Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, who already in 1847 appointed Hildebrandt as his court painter. The artist did not break contacts with his native Gdansk and repeatedly sent paintings to exhibitions at Artus Court. He also exhibited many times in Berlin and other cities. In 1868 he had a large exhibition of watercolors at the Crystal Palace in London. The artist's paintings are in the collections of many world museums, including the Louvre, the Hermitage, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston, Montreal, Hong-Kong. They can also be found in Polish private and museum collections.
