SPITZWEG, CARLMunich 1808 - 1885


Title: "Auf der Alm" (Mountainscape - Girls on a Plateau)..
On the pasture two dairymaids.
Date: Ca. 1875-80.
Technique: Oil on wood.
Measurement: 15.5 x 25.5cm.
Notation: Signed lower right: S in a rhombus: Frame: Framed.
Verso:
On the plate stamp and label of the art supplies trader Richard Wurm, Munich. As well as information about previous owners on the frame.

Literature:
S. Wichmann: Carl Spitzweg. Verzeichnis der Werke: Gemälde und Aquarelle, Stuttgart 2002, p. 525, no. 1453. Here with slightly differing measurements as well as additional information on literature and provenance;
G. Roennefahrt: Carl Spitzweg. Beschreibendes Verzeichnis seiner Gemälde, Ölstudien und Aquarelle. Munich 1960, no. 370.

Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany, since 1910s;
Auction Hugo Helbing, Munich 17th June 1911, lot 115;
Barlow Collection, Munich.

Carl Spitzweg, undoubtedly one of the most important German painters of the 19th century, shaped the Biedermeier period with his affectionate and humorous view on people and genre scenes. He repeatedly penetrates the individual with his keen powers of observation, ultimately translating what he saw into an abstracted image of a human, whose feelings, passions and hardships the viewer can identify with.

Born in Munich in 1808, he grew up in a wealthy family and studied pharmacy, chemistry and botany. Despite his education, he decided to become a painter in 1833. Financially independent thanks to inheritances, he gave himself 15 years to achieve success as an artist, which he quickly did.

Spitzweg was a tireless painter who travelled a lot and collected new impressions, especially in Bavaria, the Alps and Northern Italy. An important journey took him to the art metropoles of Paris and London in 1851, where he became acquainted with the modern outdoor painting of the School of Barbizon and the works of William Turner, which had a lasting influence on his painting style: his palette brightened and his brushstrokes became looser. The painting 'Auf der Alm', a work full of lyrical impressions of nature, is an impressive example of this. It shows two girls in traditional costume from the Loisach region on a high plateau, their gaze dreamily roaming over the wide landscape that gently spreads out at their feet. The atmospheric light and harmonious colours emphasise the calmness and the relationship between the figures. The sublime simplicity of nature and the intimate connection between landscape and figures are celebrated here.

Spitzweg produced several variations on this theme between 1855 and 1880. On the one hand, creating variations helped him to develop as an artist, while on the other, it allowed him to do justice to the great popularity of the motif. The painting shown here is probably the last version of this successful composition. Spitzweg condenses the essential elements of the picture here: he reduces the foreground and dedicates the largest area to the sky, the romantic projection surface for the distant and indeterminate. A true gem of late Romanticism.