- 37
Alexander Koester
Description
- Alexander Koester
- Enten am Seeufer (ducks on a lake shore)
- signed A KOESTER. lower right
- oil on canvas
- 97.5 by 169.5cm., 38½ by 66¾in.
Condition
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
Numbering no fewer than twenty-one ducks, the present composition must rank among the largest and most ambitious works by Alexander Koester ever to appear on the market.
Koester was one of the leading animal painters of the Munich School. His paintings of ducks proved enormously popular from the day he first exhibited the subject publicly in Berlin in 1899. The graceful birds fascinated him for over forty years. The depiction of the subtle effects of sunlight on the birds' feathers became a passionate challenge for Koester, as did conveying the ripples in the water, surrounding foliage and the play of shadows. An anonymous reviewer wrote of his work: 'the pleasure derived from these amusing web-footed birds can be explained by admiring the loose plumage, the orange beaks, the reflections in the water, the sunshine, the blueish reflexes in the air - a wealth of technical challenges'' (as quoted in Ruth Stein and Hans Koester, Alexander Koester,1988, p. 47).
Koester painted the present work from an elevated viewpoint, eliminating most background scenery and leaving the viewer to conjecture as to whether the ducks are on the banks of a river, lake or pond. Koester's view has an incidental quality to it, albeit carefully contrived, capturing a fleeting moment as the sun catches the birds' feathers and reflects off the moving water behind them. Like an Impressionist painting, it represents a glimpse as it might be caught by the casual passer-by.
Indeed, Koester can be compared to the Impressionists in his interest in depicting the fleeting effects of light. However, despite the stylistic parallels with the work of the French Impressionists and other avant-garde artists at home, such as Liebermann, Corinth, or Zügel, who clearly exerted an influence on him, Koester's pictures also reveal a deep-felt love and respect for the birds he spent so much time painting. Whereas his contemporaries in France, for example, would have most likely reduced the birds to no more than dabs of paint, Koester, true to his academic training, endowed them with an endearing character and presence of their own.