Emil Nolde

Private Collection (acquired from the artist in the early 1950s)
Galerie Neher, Essen (by 1988)
Acquired from the above by the present owners in November 1988

Executed on Japan paper, not laid down. The sheet is attached to the mount in all four corners and in the centre of all four edges. This work is in good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate, although the blue of the vase and the yellows are stronger in the original.
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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."

Emil and Ada Nolde moved to the small island of Alsen in 1903.  They rented a fisherman's cottage which became their permanent home for more than a decade.  Wherever Nolde settled, whether in Alsen or later in Utenwarf or in Seebüll, he enjoyed planting and designing flower gardens, which provided a subject-matter for his paintings and watercolours throughout his career.  This passion can be seen as an expression of the artist's fascination with nature and especially flowers; it was not only his own small garden, but also the surrounding gardens of his neighbours in Alsen, that provided Nolde with a rich source of inspiration.  Like Claude Monet, who never tired of depicting his flower garden at Giverny, Nolde took great joy in painting the flower gardens.  As Manfred Reuther has noted, 'Wherever Nolde lived, he tried to reshape his surroundings and to create flower gardens; in Alsen, at his house in Utenwarf by the North Sea and later (...) at Seebüll.  He longed for a life in harmony with nature, to which he had felt so close and unbroken an affinity since early childhood' (M. Reuther, 'Nolde and Seebüll' in Emil Nolde (exhibition catalogue), The Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1995, p.69).