Josef Rebell, Austrian/German, 1787-1828- View of Sorrento at sunset; oil on canvas, signed (lower right), 47.5 x 66 cm. Provenance: Anon. sale Sotheby's, London, 29 March 2001, lot 1. Note: A pupil of Michael Wutky (1739-1832/3) at the Vienna Academy, Rebell left Vienna in 1809 and travelled through Switzerland to Milan, where for two years he resided at the Court of Eugene Beauharnais. He later went to Rome and from 1811-1815 was at the Court of Murat, Naples. His paintings were held in high esteem among art-interested audiences across Europe, including those in aristocratic and royal circles. In the present work, Rebell has chosen to capture the dramatic cliff faces of the Sorrento coastline from the vantage point of the sea, at sunset. Indeed, he was particularly revered, in his time and since, for his romantic Italian landscapes and seascapes, especially along the coastline south-east of Naples. His unique contribution to landscape painting is undoubtedly his masterly use of light, and his works are generally illuminated by the warm, soft, and natural light of the southern sun. As well as in the Gulf of Napes and Sorrento, his paintings situate him along the Amalfi coast, in the islands of Nisidia, Capri and Ischia, and in Lakeo in the north. His oeuvre very much subscribes to the Arcadian landscape ideals of natural beauty and harmony, as championed by Claude in Italy two centuries earlier. During his sojourn in Rome in 1819, the Austrian Emperor Franz I was impressed with his work and immediatelymissioned him to create four large-format landscapes of the Naples region – toady housed in the Belvedere Museum, Vienna. He was shortly afterwards appointed Director of the Belvedere Gallery, and, with innovative vigour, transformed the gallery from a summer palace to a modern museum. His works are today also housed at the Munich Pinakothek, the Berlin Gallery, and the Parma Gallery. In summer 2022, the Belvedere Gallery will be hosting the first-ever dedicated solo exhibition of Rebell’s paintings, with works from private and public collections to be presented together for the very first time.Please refer to department for condition report