.
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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2017
Winterauktionen 25.–26.11.2022
Lenk, Franz
1898 Langenbernsdorf - 1968 Schwäbisch Hall.
«Lausa mit Kirche (Lausa with church)».
Oil on canvas, relined. Signed lower right and dated 1924. Verso a printed label of the Galerie von Abercron, Cologne, typographically inscribed with the work's data. Verso on the stretcher inscribed presumably by a different hand «15[…] Lausa bei Dresden (Lausa by Dresden)», «Zsch[…]» as well as numbered «50/1928» and «No 509.». Verso on the stretcher on two printed labels inscribed «A-24-1» and numbered «7» as well as remains of an old label.
H 99,
«[…] in the years up to and including 1931, a theme occurs again and again that is to be described here as ‹Landschaft aus nächster Distanz (landscape at close range)›. Standing directly against the sky, the houses are often depicted as several interlaced buildings. The trees surrounding them and the landscape visible behind them have the task of bringing the houses closer. Giving the pictures depth, the sky also serves the same purpose». from: Galerie von Abercron (Ed.), Franz Lenk
«I have a work in ink showing a drawing I made with devotion as a child of the village church. Even today I remember sitting on the edge of the field in the summer heat and watching the farmers walk from the valley to the field or along the village, while I struggled to depict the little church. Even now, while painting, I walk around in my scenery in my mind. I walk along the paths I paint. [...] That's what I want to paint! Not a copy, but life!» Franz Lenk, Was ich will, in: Die Kunst, vol. 1931, 1, p. 372ff., cited in: Galerie von Abercron, ibid. p. 8.
We would like to thank Mr Marco Zambon, Galerie von Abercron, Munich, for the kind remarks via
Provenance: purchased at Galerie von Abercron, Munich, in 1977; since then private collection Müllheim in the Markgräflerland.
Exhibitions: Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, Dresden, Kunstsalon Emil Richter, January - February 1926; Die Sieben von Barmen (Theo Champion, Adolf Dietrich, Hasso von Hugo, Franz Lenk, Alexander Kanoldt, Franz Radziwill, Georg Schrimpf), Bochum, Barmen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Aachen, Krefeld, Mülheim a.d. Ruhr, 1932,
Catalogue raisonné: von Abercron A-24-1 (Arbeitsbuch 154).
Condition report 