Brenner – Beaumont, Jean François Albanis de (Chambéry 1755 – 1812). The Summit of the Brenner Mountain. The ascent to the Brenner Pass north of Gossensaß to the top of the pass. In the foreground the cascading Eisack, to the right the famous great Roman street, called Imperial Street in the Middle Ages, winds up to the pass, in the picture here used by wanderers and horsemen. In the background Kreuzjoch. Aquatint printed in brown by Cornelis Apostool (1762 Amsterdam 1844). 1792. Inscribed: A. Beaumont delin. / C. Apostool Sculp. / Published as the Act directs, Jany. 1. 1792. by T. & G. Egerton, Whitehall, for the Author, title as above. 31.8 x 44.9 cm.
Egg 184 + plate 120. – Interesting representation of the Brenner in the wide-margined impression of the 1st edition on buff Whatman paper.
Sir Albanis distinguishes himself as draughtsman, engraver in aquatint, and landscapist as well as architect. Hailing from the Piedmont he was naturalized in England. Egg says on him:
“ Publishes a large number of views from Italy and the Alps between 1787 and 1806 which he partly engraves himself in aquatint manner and partly lets be engraved by Cornelis Apostool. His engravings belong
to the earliest representations of pure mountain landscapes from the Tyrol … ”
Apostool, like Goethe reckoned among the so-called amateur artists, received his education by Hendrik Meijer whom he accompanied to England in 1786 from where he returned in 1796. His fine landscape etchings – esteemed by connoisseurs and published in several suites between 1790 + 1795 – are the result of that period artistically so extraordinarily fertilizing to him. In 1808 he became the first director of the Amsterdam Museum.
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