Image of Vesuvius erupting by painter said to have witnessed it fetches £25,000

A “dramatic” painting of Mount Vesuvius erupting in 1774 by an artist said to have witnessed the event has sold for more than £25,000 at auction.

Landscape artist Jakob Philipp Hackert’s painting went under the hammer at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh on Wednesday.

According to a biography of Hackert by his friend the writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the artist witnessed the eruption in Italy himself and courageously made a series of live sketches and studies of it.

The German artist used these for reference when painting views of the scene after he returned to Rome, where he had settled in 1768.

The painting sold for £25,400, including buyer’s premium, when it went under the hammer in Lyon & Turnbull’s two-day Five Centuries sale.

Romey Clark, associate fine art specialist with Lyon and Turnbull, said previously: “Hackert’s depiction is notable for its dramatic immediacy.

“Flames and molten lava burst violently from the crater while thick clouds of smoke billow upward into the night sky.

“By positioning the viewer close to the action, Hackert moves away from the traditional panoramic views of Vesuvius.

“Instead, he offers a more concentrated and immersive vision of the eruption itself.

“This compositional decision allows him to incorporate figures in the foreground, most likely Grand Tour travellers accompanied by local guides who observe the spectacle from the slopes of the volcano.”

The eruption in 1774 came at the height of popularity of the so-called Grand Tour, a journey that wealthy British and European travellers would make around Europe to visit classical sites.

Travellers often collected souvenirs to remember their experiences and views of Mount Vesuvius were particularly popular.

Hackert (1737-1807), produced various paintings of Vesuvius erupting, including the one auctioned on Wednesday which had been expected to fetch between £20,000 and £30,000.