Jakob Philipp Hackert (Prenzlau 1737-1807 Florence)

The Swedish flag on the central boat suggests that this picture must have been executed after the artist's trip to the south of Sweden in the summer of 1764, probably in the autumn of the same year, when Hackert was in Rgen or in Stralsund. A preparatory drawing, probably an open air sketch, is in the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Nordhoff and Reimer, op. cit., no. 1194); the composition is repeated, with some alterations, in another, larger landscape (ibid., no. 408).