Auction no. 310 on 27 November 2019, 3 pm
This year's autumn auction will kick off with two outstanding draughtsmen of the German Romantic period: the artist brothers Ernst and Bernhard Fries. The works from the artists' estate show the astonishing range of their highly virtuoso, "private" oeuvre, which spans from the 1820s to the 1870s (lots 100-120).
European art and museum history come together in a work of royal provenance: as early as 1849, King Ernst August I of Hanover acquired a major work by the "first Berlin Orient painter" Hermann Kretzschmer, "Desert Sandstorm" (lot 128, EUR 120,000- 150,000). The first version belongs to the founding collection of the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig. Our painting was on permanent loan to the Hanover State Museum until recently. In Kretzschmer's sensual visual experience, the enthusiasm for the Orient celebrated by artists such as Eugène Delacroix finds an expressive Nordic counterpart.
"Do you know the country...?" - No one has shaped our image of Italy as much as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Even trained by artist friends such as Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein and Jacob Philipp Hackert, the prince of poets drew his Italy from memory around 1810. The first owner of the drawing "Mountain Lake in a Southern Landscape" (lot 147) was the important Berlin architect Johann Heinrich Strack, to whom Goethe may have given the sheet personally in 1830. The precious unique piece is offered with an estimate of EUR 40,000-60,000.
The Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna restituted another gem from the important art collection of the publisher Rudolf Mosse: the "Parklandschaft in Plankenberg" from 1887 by Emil Jakob Schindler (lot 181; estimate: EUR 50,000-70,000) is a major work of "poetic realism". The famous artist had a daughter who soon became (even) more famous - Alma Mahler, the most idolised femme fatale of her time, lover of Gustav Mahler, Oskar Kokoschka and Walter Gropius. Our picture shows her as a child picking the fragrant blooming lilacs in the garden of the family estate.
As long as 120 years ago, Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach appeared before the public in a frock and sandals, preached against the "consumption of animal scraps", wrote the motto "Humanitas" in large letters above the gates of his commune and hiked - consistently on foot - across the Alps. Mocked at the time as a "kohlrabi apostle", today he appears to us as a pioneer of an ecological utopia, a prophet of a "different modernity". With "Ephebe" (lot 223, estimate: EUR 15,000-20,000) and "Nachchtliches Bad bei den Faraglioni" (lot 224, estimate: EUR 10,000-15,000), we are presenting two major works that were probably acquired personally from the artist, who lived on Capri, and have remained in his family to this day.
Other highlights include Lovis Corinth's "Bacchant" from 1913 (estimate: EUR 100,000-150,000) and an early work by Max Liebermann: "Bauernhof in Barbizon" (estimate: EUR 80,000-120,000) is a unique testimony to his engagement with the Barbizonists, which was so central to his oeuvre, in terms of form, format and execution.
Dresden 2.0 - this is the final chord of this year's autumn auction. The "grandchildren" of Caspar David Friedrich and Co. are setting new accents at the venerable academy. Their main interest is no longer nature and landscape: the focus is on people and their physical and psychological appearance, which is scrutinised in a mercilessly sober manner. Portrayed models become contemporary commentaries on a modern society. Tommy Todtmann, an African academy model, stands casually with his arms folded - somewhere. We could still meet him today at the next crossroads. Not only the famous Impressionist Robert Sterl painted him, but also his fellow student Max Pietschmann, whose Todtmann portrait adorns our cover (lot 237, estimate: EUR 6000-8000). Pietschmann's illuminated female back nudes, on the other hand, are more reminiscent of the undercooled beauty of the 20th and 21st century avant-gardes of realism (lots 236 and 241; estimate: EUR 3000-4000 each). Osmar Schindler's "Germanic Warrior with Helmet" from 1902 (estimate: EUR 6,000-8,000), on the other hand, may have the requisite heroic stature, but his outfit and red-painted lips appear burlesque. Modern types become the main protagonists of a courageous art that is worth discovering - precisely because it speaks to us with such blunt directness.