Master Paintings
Master Paintings
Property from a Distinguished European Collection
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller
Three Graces garlanded with roses
Auction Closed
May 20, 03:42 PM GMT
Estimate
150,000 - 200,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Property from a Distinguished European Collection
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller
Vienna 1793 - Baden 1865
Three Graces garlanded with roses
signed and dated lower right: Waldmüller / 1856
oil on panel
panel: 32 ¼ by 25 ⅝ in.; 81.2 by 65 cm.
framed: 42 by 35 ½ in.; 106.6 by 90.1 cm.
Olga Storzer, Prague;
Private collection, Budapest;
Acquired in 1941 through Hermann Hoffmann by The German Reich for the planned Führermuseum, Linz (inv. no. 2001);
Transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point by Allied Forces (Inv. no. 8590) and restituted to Austria (BDA Salzburg) in 1952;
Stored at Mauerbach and restituted in 1979;
Anonymous sale, Vienna, Dorotheum, 17 November 1981, lot 185;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 7 July 2010, lot 287;
There acquired by the present collector.
R. Feuchtmüller, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller 1793-1865, Vienna, 1996, p. 508, no. 907, reproduced.
Similar to other artists studying at the Viennese Academy at the beginning of the 19th Century, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller looked to Old Masters found in public collections as a source of inspiration to build his technique and artistic skill. Traveling and exhibiting all over Europe throughout his career, he became a well-established painter to several royal families. While he received acclaim for his portraits and his ability to capture the emotion and naturalism of the human condition, his landscapes reveal an innate sense of beauty and observation through a heightened sense of detail, color and texture.
The present lot brings together his strengths in a most interesting and enticing manner. Waldmüller manages to create balance and harmony in equal measure. The luminous, almost translucent, quality of the three Graces harkens back to Correggio and early sixteenth century Italy. While the figures appear idealized, their context within a meticulously detailed landscape sets the scene within our natural world.