Curated by Claudia Nordhoff

Opening 24.09.2025, 7.00 p.m.

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his death, the Casa di Goethe is the first museum in Italy to dedicate an exhibition to the draughtsman Christoph Heinrich Kniep (1755-1825).

Kniep is best known today as Goethe’s companion and draughtsman on his journey to Sicily. The artist, who became friends with Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, Friedrich Bury, Johann Heinrich Schütz and Jakob Philipp Hackert during his almost three-year stay in Rome, spent the rest of his life in Naples after his return from Sicily. Here he developed a rich artistic oeuvre. Working for travellers on the ‘Grand Tour’ and the local aristocracy, Kniep created both realistic views of the Neapolitan countryside and large-scale ideal landscapes with mythological staffage, which were very popular among the public.

With his work, he made a significant contribution to landscape painting in Italy around 1800; as a German artist in Rome and Naples, he occupies an outstanding position. The exhibition documents all phases of his work, showing outline and sepia drawings, watercolours and etchings. In addition to drawings from his own collection, loans from the Klassik Stiftung Weimar, the Goethe-Museum Düsseldorf, the Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Istituto centrale per la grafica in Rome will also be on display.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue in German and Italian with an introduction by Gregor H. Lersch and essays by Claudia Nordhoff, Christoph Orth, Jutta Eckle and Andreas Stolzenburg.

The complementary programme includes lectures, readings and guided tours by the curators.

An exhibition in collaboration with the Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Directorate of Mueums

With kind support of the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung and the Tavolozza Foundation