On firm Japon. Signed in the lower right. 45.5 x 34 cm. , the full sheet.

• Nolde's idea of emotionally determined art became manifest in his watercolors.
• Large, full-sheet watercolor in remarkably saturated colors.
• Emil Nolde is regarded a watercolor virtuoso, making the delicate beauty and the flowers' splendor the bearer of expression.
Accompanied by a photo expertise issued by Prof. Dr. Manfred Reuther on July 10, 2002 (in copy).
LITERATURE: Gestalt und Gestaltung. Das Kunstwerk als Selbstdarstellung des Künstlers, Krefeld 1958, illustrated on p. 129. Christie's, London, Auktion Impressionist & Modern Works on Paper, February 6, 2003, lot 467.

Private collection (acquired in the 1920s, family-owned until 2003: Christie's). Galerie Schwarzer, Düsseldorf. Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia

The German expressionist artist Emil Nolde painted his way into the hearts of art lovers with his vibrant flower pictures. Viewers are captivated by the color and power of his works. Nolde himself described painting in watercolors as a personal calling. He painted people, landscapes, animals, and flowers. From the intimate style of his early watercolors, he worked his way to a more liberated, broader, and fluid style that required an in-depth understanding of and response to the properties of the papers and the potential the colors offered. Nolde's love of flowers is rooted in his childhood and accompanied his entire artistic career. The intensity and radiance of the color and the combination of beauty and transience repeatedly inspired the artist, as is also evident in our work. More than any other subject, the flower motif allowed Nolde more freedom to indulge in his color phantasies. They allowed him to explore his ideas of the musicality and absolute effect of color to a point close to abstraction without losing his connection to nature, which always remained a prerequisite for his creativity. Aided by the wet-in-wet technique he used on absorbent paper, he utilized color as a vehicle for emotional qualities that served not to recognize the representational form but to approach his pictorial idea intuitively.