.
Carl Spitzweg
5th February 1808 – 23th September 1885
Carl Spitzweg was born on 5th of February in 1808 in Unterpfaffenhofen, Bavaria. Although trained as a chemist, he discovered quite early his talent for drawing and his affinity with art. Spitzweg travelled extensively during his lifetime and the impressions formed by his travels greatly influenced his work. Shortly after completing his studies in pharmaceutics in 1832, he visited Italy. It was particularly in the cities of Florence, Rome, and Naples that he discovered the many significant works of Western culture which were to leave a permanent imprint on him.
A severe case of dysentery in 1833 strengthened his resolve to abandon his career as a chemist and he proceeded to commit himself solely to his painting. In June 1835, he became a member of the Munich Art Association and travelled that same year to southern Tirol with the landscape painter Eduard Schleich, the Elder.
In 1839 he completed his first painting entitled ''The Poor Poet'. Although this recurring motif would later be considered his most well-known body of work, the painting was not accepted at this time by the jury of the Munich Art Association.
As regards his graphic production, the first publication in 1844 of his own illustrations in the Munich weekly paper 'Fliegende Blätter' is considered quite significant. His visits to the Industrial Exposition in Paris and the World's Fair exhibition in London in 1851 were his first contact with the Oriental scenes which would begin to inform his work.
To the deserving painter were bestowed numerous honours during the second half of Spitzweg's lifetime: in 1865 the Bavarian Royal Merit Order of St. Michael was conferred upon him, and in 1875 he was named an honorary member of the Academy of Fine Arts.
Carl Spitzweg died on 23th of September in 1885 and was entombed in the historic South Cemetery in Munich.
He leaves behind a body of work dedicated to the townspeople who inhibit his genre scenes, and with acute and pointed, but never ill-natured humour he portrays the everday bourgeois life of his time.
Lit: Siegfried Wichmann, Carl Spitzweg. Verzeichnis der Werke, Gemälde und Aquarelle, Stuttgart: Belser, 2002.
Carl Spitzweg
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3220
Winterauktionen 19.–20.11.2021
Master of the Nieder-Erlenbach Altar attr.
Probably Middle Rhine late
Two counterparts. Exteriors of two altar wings, representing the Annunciation.
Oil on panel, margins attached as well as embedded in another, modern panel. Unsigned. Verso inscribed «Tafel 1 (panel 1)» respectively «Tafel 2 (panel 2)» and «Rückseite (back)» as well as on an embossed label of the studio for painting restoration G. Kreuter, Basel, handwritten inscribed «Oktober 1966 (october 1966)».
H 102,
H 103,5,
Spread over two panels lies an interior with red and white floor tiles, a surrounding wooden bench and a plain beamed ceiling. Through windowless openings in the walls, the view opens onto rolling green hills, a fortified city and bizarre, craggy rock formations. On the right panel, the Virgin Mary kneels at a prayer desk. Almost ecstatically enraptured and wrapped in a white cloak, she meets the Archangel Gabriel on the left panel, who, raising his hand in a gesture of blessing, announces to her the message of conception. In front of the angel, there is a bundle of lilies symbolising virginal purity on the floor in a blue and white vase.
The Annunciation is, so to speak, the nucleus of the Christian promise of salvation. The Son of the Virgin will sacrifice himself for the sins of humanity and thus overcome death. Due to the central importance of this episode of salvation history, it has been repeated countless times and plays a fundamental role in the pictorial transmission of the Christian faith. It is usually integrated into larger contexts and is depicted together with other scenes from the Gospels. Thus, one could assume that the present panels are the outer sides of a folding winged altarpiece.
Verbal attribution: Dr. Bodo Brinkmann and Gabriel Dette, Kunstmuseum Basel, 09.02.2018.
Statement: Dr. Eva Maria Breisig, Städtische Museen,
Condition report 