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MAX LIEBERMANN | Die Birkenallee im Wannseegarten, Blick auf das Kohlfeld (An Avenue of Birch Trees in the Wannsee Garden, A View of a Cabbage Field)
Estimate
600,000 - 800,000 GBP
bidding is closed
Description
- Max Liebermann
- Die Birkenallee im Wannseegarten, Blick auf das Kohlfeld (An Avenue of Birch Trees in the Wannsee Garden, A View of a Cabbage Field)
- signed M. Liebermann and dated 1919 (lower left)
- oil on canvas
- 70 by 90cm.
- 27 1/2 by 35 3/8 in.
- Painted in 1919.
Provenance
Kunsthaus Bühler, Stuttgart Gabriele Zimmermann (née Bühler), Stuttgart (by descent from the above in 1974)
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1998
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1998
Exhibited
Hamburg, Kunsthalle & Berlin, Alte Nationalgalerie, Im Garten von Max Liebermann, 2004-05, no. 24, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Literature
Matthias Eberle, Max Liebermann. Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde und Ölstudien, Munich, 1996, vol. II, no. 1919/23, illustrated in colour p. 991
Catalogue Note
The present work depicts the surroundings of Max Liebermann’s beloved garden at Wannsee in Berlin, a subject that provided him with an endless source of inspiration. Having attained considerable recognition as an artist, followed by financial success, Liebermann commissioned a villa in 1909, sparing no expense on its formal flower beds, exotic shrubs and thick hedges. The Wannsee villa became the painter’s summer residence during the last decades of his life, and the paintings from this period largely focus on the garden and the view of the lake that it offered. Within this series, the artist rendered his subject from various angles, sometimes focusing on the cultivated, geometrical patches of flower beds while at other times representing the open expanses.
Liebermann’s practice of painting en plein air, as well as his method of exploring the same subject from a variety of viewpoints, demonstrates Liebermann’s status as the most important German post-Impressionist painter. Like Claude Monet, who never tired of painting his garden at Giverny, Liebermann painted the Wannsee garden from a variety of angles and at different times of day. In the present canvas, he depicted a path lined with birch trees that connected his villa with the lake, which can be glimpsed between the tree trunks. To the left of the alley, a woman can be seen working in the cabbage field. When Liebermann had his garden designed, he insisted on keeping the birch trees in their original place and thus created a wonderful picturesque path in his garden which became an inspiring source for many of his Wannsee paintings.
Liebermann’s practice of painting en plein air, as well as his method of exploring the same subject from a variety of viewpoints, demonstrates Liebermann’s status as the most important German post-Impressionist painter. Like Claude Monet, who never tired of painting his garden at Giverny, Liebermann painted the Wannsee garden from a variety of angles and at different times of day. In the present canvas, he depicted a path lined with birch trees that connected his villa with the lake, which can be glimpsed between the tree trunks. To the left of the alley, a woman can be seen working in the cabbage field. When Liebermann had his garden designed, he insisted on keeping the birch trees in their original place and thus created a wonderful picturesque path in his garden which became an inspiring source for many of his Wannsee paintings.