Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich (Weimar 1712 – 1774 Dresden)

Study of the Upper Part of an Egyptian Sculpture of Cleopatra III

Pencil, pen and brown ink, brown and grey wash, black ink framing lines, 281 x 190 mm (11.1 x 7.5 inch), laid down onto a collector’s mount with framing lines in black ink and green wash

Signed with monogram ‘C.W.E.D:’ (lower left) and with inscription ‘Nr. 184. C.G.E. Dietricy’ (verso)

Provenance
~ Heinrich Kasper Lempertz Sr (1816–1898) (Lugt 1337)
~ Professor Johan Quirijn van Regteren Altena (1899 – 1980), Amsterdam (Lugt 4617); by descent until sold, Christie’s, Amsterdam, 10 December 2014, lot 9, repr.
~ Private collection, Germany

***

Dietrich was born in Weimar as the son of the painter and engraver Johann Georg Dietrich (1684–1752), who was his first teacher, educating his son in the art of drawing.¹ He was then apprenticed to the landscapist Johann Alexander Thiele (1685–1752) in Dresden. After three years, Dietrich returned to Weimar and established himself as a master and was patronised by Count Heinrich Brühl.

A visit to Holland to study the painters of the Golden Age influenced him greatly. In 1743 he furthermore travelled to Rome and Venice, stimulated by his patron Frederick August II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. He was appointed professor of landscape and animal painting in 1764 at the Dresden academy, and was awarded honourary memberships of the academies of Augsburg, Bologna and Copenhagen. Dietrich painted landscapes but also genre pieces and ‘tronies’ in the manner of Rembrandt and other Dutch artists.

Dietrich was an active draughtsman. The present drawing wonderful example of his draughtsmanship and shows Dietrich’s close interest in foreign cultures and artefacts. It is a close copy of the upper part of an Egyptian sculpture of Cleopatra III, dating to the Ptolemaic period, preserved since the eighteenth century in the collections of the Dukes of Saxe-Gotha, and now in the Herzogliches Museum in Schloss Friedenstein in Gotha, Thuringia (fig.).² Our drawing formed part of the celebrated collection of Prof. Johan Quirijn van Regteren Altena in Amsterdam.

This drawing can for instance be compared to Dietrich’s drawing of an Oriential in a Fantastic Headdress in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington (fig.).³

1. For the artist, see P. Michel, Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich, genannt Dietricy 1712-1774, Munich 2012.
2. Inv. no. Aeg. 4; Uta Wallenstein, Ägyptische Sammlung. Gotha: Schlossmuseum Gotha, Gotha 1996, pp. 98-99, cat. no. 31, repr. I am very grateful to Dr Marc Loth of the Humboldt University in Berlin, email correspondence, 17 July 2024.
3. Pen and brown ink, 145 x 112 mm, c.1731/32, inv. no. 1984.1.6. https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.62940.html