A distant view of a country house (hunting lodge) in a hilly landcapePylon construction, the setting of which depicted from a distant perspective against the backdrop of a hilly landscape, a group of huntsmen racing towards the building from the left.

A prodigious young talent whose career was cut short by his premature death, Friedrich Gilly was a fount of architectural ideas, the large majority of which would never go beyond the design stage. As well as numerous sketches and preliminary drawings featuring every conceivable type of building, his oeuvre includes creations that, by virtue of their composition and technical skill, invite appraisal as stand-alone artworks, which incorporate architectural ideas into idyllic landscape settings. Gilly’s inspiration for this approach seemingly drew upon the carefully measured symbiosis of nature and art that was then beginning to dominate the thinking of every designer of the ‘English park’. Our picture represents an arresting visualization of the ideas underlying this aesthetic. Gilly’s fantasy-filled vision brings together the prevailing (and seemingly contradictory) currents shaping European culture during a period of dramatic transition: architecture inspired by revolutionary Neoclassicism, and a landscape imbued with a distinctly Romantic sensibility and emotional resonance.