File:Die Porta Martis, auch Porta Nigra gennant (BM 1993,0620.2).jpg

Height: 381 millimetres

Width: 502 millimetres

Text from Antony Griffiths and Frances Carey, exhib.cat., BM, London, 'German Printmaking in the Age of Goethe', BM 1994, no. 131:

Trier possesses some of the most imposing Roman remains in northern Europe, including an Imperial palace, baths and amphitheatre, as well as the famous Porta Nigra. This had been built as the main gate to the city in the second century AD, but in the Middle Ages had been blocked up, and incorporated into a monastery. Napoleon had ordered its restoration in order to provide an imperial gateway into Germany, and after 1815, when Trier became part of the Prussian kingdom, King Friedrich Wilhelm III personally took an interest in the freeing of the Roman structure from the medieval church that had been built on top, an operation in which Schinkel was consulted. This had been completed, and the gate brought back into use again in 1822, just before Ramboux's return from Italy. He had already made an aquatint of the Porta Nigra in 1814 (Trier 1991 cat. 1), and must have decided to make a larger series of lithographs soon after his arrival.

By November 1823 he had completed enough drawings to set off to Munich, in order to draw them himself on lithographic stones at the establishment of Joseph Anton Selb (1784-1832). Selb had in 1815 taken over Zeller's first lithographic shop, and was currently working with Mannlich on the continuation of the Munich Gallery that Strixner had recently abandoned (see 1854,1020.1443). Ramboux travelled through Frankfurt, where he saw his old friend from his days in Rome, J. F. Böhmer (see Griffiths & Carey 1994, cat. 121), who in a letter to J.D.Passavant of 25 January 1824 reported his intention "to begin a large lithographic work, which will show the antiquities, art and nature of Trier and its surrounds. He is in a position to produce a series of pictures that embraces all branches of art and all centuries. His landscape drawings (for he brought a fair collection of drawings with him) did not appeal to me very much; but his architectural ones, among them two views of the Porta Nigra, are some of the finest that I ever saw of their kind. Their scale and style are roughly similar to Piranesi." In a letter to Ramboux himself on 24 March 1824, Böhmer continued to enthuse: "I hope that a good number of your masterly drawings are now lithographed. I particularly enjoy the architectural ones which seem to me to be much superior to the landscapes, and to be among the very best of their kind."

Ramboux's determination to draw on the stone himself was unusual at this time: lithography was still underdeveloped, and most artists were happy to leave specialists like Strixner or Piloty to perform this tricky task. Another Trier painter, Anton Joseph Dräger, who saw Ramboux at work in December 1823, was shocked: "It is sad that the public is so backward that such a worthy painter in which it could take pride, is left alone to himself, so that in order to earn a living he has to take up such an unworthy task. I have a horror of finding myself in such a position" (Zahn p.33).

Ramboux felt quite differently, and even drew attention to his role: each print is lettered "Drawn from nature and on the stone by J. A. Ramboux". The lithographs are in fact superior to the drawings (most of which survive at Trier), and Ramboux introduced many felicitous changes as he worked on the stone. Böhmer was right to compare the architectural plates to Piranesi. The landscapes, which he did not like so much, are also remarkable. The broad sweeping vistas combine a classicising approach to landscape with anecdotal detail in the manner of Bruegel. Goethe welcomed the set in a review in 'Über Kunst und Alterthum', 1825, vol.v, Heft 2, pp. 188-91, and their quality is incomparably superior to that of a conventionally picturesque set of views printed in the same year by Christoph Hawich under the title 'Triers Alterthümer und Umgebungen' at a lithographic press that he had himself just established in Trier. Ramboux painted a portrait of Alois Senefelder in 1831 (formerly Cologne, repr. Trier 1991 p. 79).