Allegories of Faith, Hope and Charity

A study, with minor variations, for Hess's panel picture of 1819, now in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg (State Hermitage, Department of Western European Art, Exhibiton Catalogue II, Leningrad and Moscow, 1958, no. 4752, fig. 329). The picture was engraved by N. Maxel when in the Duke of Leuchtenberg's Collection, Munich. Although dating from before his departure for Italy in 1821, the present drawing shows the careful and sensitive draughtsmanship that ensured that Hess was among the most gifted of the artists in the Nazarene circle around Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria in Rome. On his return to Munich in 1826, Hess was appointed director of the Academy, but the royal commissions that went with the post constricted his early promise.