© 2004-2024 Auktionshaus Kaupp GmbH   Impressum   Datenschutzerklärung E-Mail            Telefon +49 (0) 76 34 / 50 38 0

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

Results of your search

Matches: 2/58 back Navigation left | overview Navigation top | continue Navigation right | send e-mail email 

lotimage

popup

view
 

3296
Winterauktionen 19.–20.11.2021
Spitzweg, Carl
1808 Munich - 1885 ibid.
Sitting male nude with anatomical sketch.
Circa 1831 - 1835. Pencil on paper. Estate stamp (rhombus and signature stamp, Lugt 2307) lower right and inscribed probably by a different hand «N 52 C».Verso on the passepartout on a collection label typographically titled, inscribed «Carl Spitzweg, 1808 - 1885» and numbered «281a - 8 - 52».
H 36,5, W 23,6 cm (sheet). Unframed.
Through differentiated shading and hatching, Spitzweg brings out the three-dimensionality of the model. «It is that fidelity to the object that he follows most closely. [...] The conditioning of the voluminous musculature and the structure of the extremities are subject to interpretations that Spitzweg had already collected in Italy. [...] Either way, in the early nude drawings there is a certain object alertness of the haptic.» from: Siegfried Wichmann, Spitzweg, Die frühesten Spitzwegbilder, Reihe für vergleichende und angewandte Kunstgeschichte (R.f.v.u.a.K.), without number, Lipp Verlag Munich n.d., p. 13.
«Several nude drawings are known from Spitzweg's œuvre, some of them even bear the name of the person depicted. Most of these nude drawings were done between 1831 and 1835.» (Detlef Rosenberger, Oberostendorf, 01.06.2020)
.
Statement: Detlef Rosenberger, Oberostendorf, 01.06.2020.
We would like to thank Detlef Rosenberger, Oberostendorf, for the scientific consultation, based on the original.
Provenance: collection Emil Keck inventory number 281a - 8 - 52; estate Curt Edgar Schreiber, former managing director of the watch factory Mauthe, Schwenningen, and successors.
Catalogue raisonné: The work is listed in the upcoming digital catalogue raisonné by Detlef Rosenberger.

Condition report  


 

starting price: 1000,- EUR