Jakob Christoph Miville (1786–1836)
A Basel Landscape Artist between Rome and St. Petersburg
Born in Basel, Jakob Christoph Miville (1786 –1836) was a widely traveled painter and draftsman. A sojourn in Rome and tours of the Alps informed his early heroic landscapes. But it was only during his stay in Russia (1809 –1817) that he developed his distinctive feeling for nature: the vast expanses and sceneries he encountered in Crimea and the Caucasus inspired his evolution into a Romantic landscape artist. He returned to his native city with an extensive collection of sketches and studies, which served as the foundation for the paintings he continued to produce in Switzerland. In collaboration with the Stiftung für Kunst des 19. Jahrhunderts, Olten, the Kunstmuseum Basel presents the first major exhibition dedicated to Miville and his artistic milieu, bringing together drawings and paintings from Swiss and Russian collections.
