Goethe in Italy

The painting below is Goethe's most famous portrait: Goethe in Campagna (1787) by Tischbein, a German painter who had spent many years in Italy, and with whom Goethe stayed when he was in Rome. He was 38. The Campagna refers to the Roman Campagna, the area surrounding Rome, not the region of Campania by Naples.

When Goethe was there, from 1786 to 1788, he met other German and Swiss artists, Tischbein of course, but also Angelika Kauffman, whose portrait of Goethe is under the Tischbein.

Goethe, of course, preferred the epic painting, but Kauffman catches him well here.

At bottom is his garden in Weimar.

The large garden, some of which is shown above, is at the rear of the Frauenplan house in central Weimar. The garden was mostly tended by his wife Christiane but it inspired some of Goethe's research and writings, including the botanical treatise The Metamorphosis of the Plant. On the other side of the house is the square.

He lived in the house for 50 years, from 1782 till his death in 1832 and it is now the Goethe National Museum (link).