Johann König

With Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, London, 1988 (European Drawings: Recent Acquisitions, no. 48)

Paper laid down on board. Overall in good condition. Some areas of rubbing and abrasion more so around the edges of the sheet. Otherwise colours remain fresh and vibrant. Sold in a painted black frame.
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This finely executed gouache is part of a small group of works by König that depict subjects from the Old Testament, which may once all have formed part of a single cycle of images.  Another, also with Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox in 1988 (no. 47), shows the flood that preceded the rainbow depicted here, and one representing Angels Escorting Lot and his Family from Sodom is in the National Gallery of Scotland.¹ 

Like the extraordinary work by Hoefnagel that is lot 11 in this sale, this is an exquisite example of the tradition of 'cabinet miniature' painting.  The story from Genesis is depicted with a fitting sense of radiance and hope, König's rainbow emerging from the grey skies through very fine sheets of rain.  The attention to detail here is subtle yet enormously powerful, light striations of white gouache piercing the grey sky to emulate very convincingly the effect of rain.  This precise handling, along with the approach to the treatment of foliage and the overall luminosity, demonstrates the strong influence of Adam Elsheimer, with whom König surely came into contact when he was in Rome in 1610, and whose brilliant, highly atmospheric, small scale works on copper he surely saw there.  We also see the impact that Roman architecture had on König, evident in the buildings that he chose to include in his landscape.

Stylistically, the rendering of figures and the delicate brushwork in the trees are very similar to the abovementioned gouache by König in the National Gallery of Scotland.  The present composition is very successfully in the way that the eye is led through its light undulating landscape, and König has skilfully interpreted the biblical narrative, infusing his scene with an appropriate sense of expectation.

1. See The Draughtsman's Art, exhib. cat., Edinburgh, The National Gallery of Scotland, 1999, p. 84, no. 36, reproduced