Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries

Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 37. On the Mountainside.

Property From The Louis-Dreyfus Family Collections

Adolph von Menzel

On the Mountainside

Auction Closed

February 5, 05:23 PM GMT

Estimate

30,000 - 50,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property From The Louis-Dreyfus Family Collections


Adolph von Menzel

(Breslau 1815 - 1905 Berlin)

On the Mountainside


Pencil, with stumping;

signed with the artist's initials in pencil, lower center: A.M.

inscribed and numbered in blue chalk on the backing board: Dr. Wolfson / Hamburg / 806

247 by 327 mm; 9 ¾ by 13 ¼ in.


Executed c.1872-1874

Dr. Albert Martin Wolffson, Hamburg, by 1905,

thence by descent to his widow, Helene Marie Wolffson, Hamburg, in 1913,

thence by descent to her daughter, Elsa Helene Cohen,

by whom sold to Hildebrand Gurlitt, Hamburg, in 1938;

with Wilhelm Grosshennig, Kunstausstellung Gerstenberger, Chemnitz, Adolph Menzel 1815-1905, 1939, no. 25,

where acquired by a private collector,

thence by descent to a private collection, Baden-Württemberg;

sold in agreement with the heirs of Elsa Helene Cohen, Berlin, Villa Grisebach, 1 June 2016, lot 208,

William Louis-Dreyfus, Mount Kisco, New York (acquired from the above in 2016),

The Louis-Dreyfus Family Collections (by descent from the above in 2016)

Berlin, Königliche National-Galerie, Ausstellung von Werken Adolph von Menzel, 1905, no. 5426 ('Am Bergeshang');

Stockholm, Liljevalchs Konsthall, Nyare Tysk Konst, 1922, no. 496 ('Hydda i bergen');

Hamburg, Le Claire Kunst, ‘A World caught with the eye and held by the pencil’: Drawings by Adolph Menzel, 2019, Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, no. 17

"In this small village there is probably not a single corner, no old brown wooden hut, no well, no picturesque fence, no stubborn gnarled tree that this inveterate observer and untiring, fervent creator has not studied and drawn."


Such was the recollection of Agathe Herrmann, the daughter of one of Menzel's patrons, when describing the artist's time in the Austrian spa town of Bad Hofgastein, in the Gastein Valley, south of Salzburg. Menzel visited the picturesque alpine town on at least four occasions in 1872, 1873, 1874 and 1879 as the guest of Magnus Herrmann and it is likely to have been on one of these visits that this large and beautifully preserved sheet was drawn.


The rarity of Menzel’s landscape drawings cannot be overstated and although the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, houses a rich collection, including such works as Katholische Pfarrkirche St. Martin in Jauer von Nordosten1 and the masterful The Schafgraben Flooded2, when one looks for comparable drawings that have been on the global art market in the last two decades only the artist’s Stadtansicht, Hinterhof in Berlin3, can be justly compared to the present work.


1Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, inv. no. SZ Menzel N 1134

2See P. Betthausen et alAdolph Menzel 1815-1905: Master Drawings from East Berlin, exhib. cat., New York, The Frick Collection et al., 1990-91, p. 59, no. 2, p. 57, reproduced

3Sale, Bern, Galerie Kornfeld, 6 June 2008, lot 23 (130,000 CHF)