Lot 162: Charles Frederick de Brocktorff (Danish, 1775-1850) View of St John's Church, Valletta, Malta

View of St John's Church, Valletta, Malta
pen and ink and watercolour over pencil
21 x 31cm (8 1/4 x 12 3/16in).

The Baroque St John’s Church, now St John's Co-Cathedral, seen here from the corner of Strada S. Giovanni and Strada Reale, is the sacred home of the Grand Masters of the Knights of Malta. It was commissioned by Grand Master Jean de la Cassière in 1572 as the conventual church of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller of St John. It was designed by the celebrated architect Gerolamo Cassar, who also built seven of the nine auberges belonging to the Knights.

St John's Church was a popular subject for Brocktorff. A similar work is illustrated in T. Vella, Charles Frederick de Brocktorff: Watercolours of Malta at the National Library, Valletta, Volume II (Valletta, 2008, p.186, Pl.VIII.1):

"In keeping with the accuracy of represention in his other views of Valletta, Brocktorff's paintings of St John's Church are faithful to what any visitor could have observed in the late 1820s and early 1830s, and can be interpreted as credible testimony to the building, inasmuch as a historical document would." (Vella 2008, p.191)

He lithographed another similar view (Vella 2008, p.191, Pl.VIII.5), as well as a view of St John's Church from the corner of Strada Mercante and Strada S. Giovanni; the latter was published in Descriptions of Malta and Gozo by George Percy Badger (Malta, 1838):

"In representing the church Brocktorff preferred to depict the long building from either the Strada Reale of from Strada Mercanti, similar to the way he chose to depict the façade of the Palace. These were possibly intended to be sold as pairs, or simply to present the building through a drawing convention he was familiar with, that of the isometric view." (Vella 2008, p.191)