Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller

Sale: Schidlof, Vienna, 26 November 1921, lot 64
Purchased at the above sale by the family of the present owner; thence by descent

Bruno Grimschitz, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Salzburg, 1957, no. 1011
Rupert Feuchtmüller, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller: 1793-1865, Vienna/Munich, 1996, p. 297, discussed, p. 527, no. 1097, catalogued & illustrated

The panel is in flat and stable condition. There are some vertical strokes of retouching addressing frame rubbing in the centre of the right edge visible under UV light over a thick varnish, and a 1cm squared cluster of pinhole-sized spots of paint flaking to the right of her waist (visible in the catalogue illustration). The signature has been partially rubbed and there has been some yellowing of the varnish over time. This work is in good condition, and would benefit from a clean. Held in a decorative gold-painted wood and plaster rococo-style frame with a nameplate and floral motifs.
"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."

This work, which Rupert Feuchtmüller singles out for special attention in the introduction to his catalogue raisonné and describes in great detail (p. 297) epitomises his paintings of children for which Waldmüller was so popular and best loved. Against the backdrop of a traditional wooden barn in early spring (the trees are not yet in leaf), a smiling farmer's daughter walks straight towards the viewer, offering up posies of violets, in her hand and on a plate, the first harbingers of spring. Primroses and cowslips lie at her feet.

From the 1840s the emphasis of Waldmüller's work shifted dramatically from portraiture and flower painting as he developed an interest in genre paintings or Sittenbilder. These depictions of Austrian peasant life are often seen as his most important and characteristic works. His scenes of children, festivals, courtship and family gatherings are specifically Biedermeier variations of the peasant genre scene, blending a naturalistic emphasis on individual appearance and realist detail with the sentimental idealism of subject-matter that resulted from his grounding in the eighteenth-century tradition of such artists as Greuze and Chardin. Indeed Waldmüller's pictorial world is poised between past and present, celebrating as it does a rural idyll and tranquility at a time when the rightness of the order of things was coming under threat from industrialisation and social change.

The present work represents an exciting rediscovery, having remained in the hands of the same family since its purchase, in Vienna, ninety years ago.