Sale: 538 / 19th Century Art, June 10. 2023 in Munich Lot 607

 

607
Friedrich Preller d. Ä.
Odyssee-Zyklus, 1864.
Oil on cardboard
Estimate:
€ 10,000 / $ 10,800
Sold:
€ 11,430 / $ 12,344

(incl. surcharge)
Odyssee-Zyklus. 1864.
Oil on cardboard.
Einige Tafeln monogrammiert "P" und datiert sowie verso mit Nachlasstempel. 23.2 x 13.8 cm (9.1 x 5.4 in).

PROVENANCE: Collection of Edmund Kanoldt (1845-1904), Karlsruhe (with a partly preserved estate stamp on the reverse).
Estate of Edmund Kanoldt.
Private collection Berlin.

A central motif in the work of the late Classicist Weimar court painter Friedrich Preller are the scenes from the Odyssey, in which he makes the narrative connection between landscape and figure with great mastery. After his initial training at the drawing school in Weimar, he studied in Antwerp with the history painter Ignace van Bree. A subsequent five-year stay in Italy, during which he became acquainted with great artists such as Joseph Anton Koch and their conception of the heroic landscape, were henceforth formative for his creation. Back in Weimar, he executed a first cycle of odyssey landscapes in the "Roman House" of the Leipzig publisher Hermann Härtel from 1833 to 1836. He exhibited to the general public for the first time in the ‘Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung’ in Munich and Berlin in 1858, showing large-format charcoal drawings with 14 motifs from the famous Greek epic. A few months after the exhibition, the Grand Duke Carl Alexander of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach commissioned the painter to convert the drawings into murals for the Grand Ducal Museum in Weimar (today: Neues Museum), to which Preller added two more scenes. In preparation for this cycle, Preller traveled to Italy again in 1859-61 and executed the murals in 1863-68 in a technique based on ancient encaustic. Numerous studies, in which Preller outlines the structure of the composition and, as here, above all the coloring, precede the project, which is to become his largest and most important work. [KT]



607
Friedrich Preller d. Ä.
Odyssee-Zyklus, 1864.
Oil on cardboard
Estimate:
€ 10,000 / $ 10,800
Sold:
€ 11,430 / $ 12,344

(incl. surcharge)