MAYER, Luigi

1755 - 1803

Luigi Mayer was born in Italy, probably in Rome on 1 March 1755 but with Germanic roots. He is mentioned in the records of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome in 1771, when he seems to have been associated with Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778). He travelled extensively through the Ottoman Empire between 1776 and 1794 with Sir Robert Ainslie, 1st Bart (c1730–1812), British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and became well known for his sketches and paintings of panoramic landscapes of ancient sites from the Balkans to the Greek Islands, Turkey and Egypt, particularly ancient monuments, and the Nile. In 1792, he accompanied three British travellers, George Graves, Charles Berners (1770-1831) and Henry Tilson, on the Ottoman leg of the trios extended Grand Tour. During his stay in Constantinople, Mayer married Clara (or Chiara) Barthold, an artist herself, who imitated the work of her husband very closely, she was said to have been of Bulgarian origin, but little is known of her, how they met or with whom they associated. In 1794 they accompanied Sir Robert back to England and settled in London. Later Mayer visited Suffolk where he stayed with the family of Charles Berners (1770-1831) at Woolverstone Park, whom he had met in Turkey in 1792, and Ipswich Museum holds three watercolours, two dated 1799, of his visit to Holbrook. This cosmopolitan artist, usually associated with the more exotic landscapes of Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, so it is fascinating in pictures such as 'A View in the Plantations, Holbrook, Suffolk' to see his response to the quieter beauty of Suffolk. Luigi Mayer died in London on 1 January 1803 being survived by his wife who continued to produce views of Constantinople, most of them versions of her husband’s compositions.

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Works by This Artist