Ernst Ferdinand Oehme

Probably, the estate of the artist
Julius Hübner (German painter, professor at the Dresden Academy, and the brother-in-law of the present owner's great grandfather, Emil Bendemann; probably acquired at the artist's estate sale in 1855); thence by descent (sale: Sotheby's, London, 20 November, 2012, lot 22)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

This is a preparatory study for Oehme's seminal 1821 oil painting, Dom im Winter (Cathedral in the Snow), measuring 127 by 100 cm, in the Gemäldegalerie Neue Meister, Dresden (Hans Joachim Neidhardt, 'Ernst Ferdinand Oehme – Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde und bildmäßigen Zeichnungen', in: Ernst Ferdinand Oehme 1797-1855. Ein Landschaftsmaler der Romantik, exh. cat., Dresden, 1997, no. 18). Another ink and watercolour study measuring 25 by 22cm is in the collection of the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf (Neidhardt, no. 17). Item 37 in Oehme's estate inventory is given as a watercolour entitled Klosterhof im Winter (Cloister in Winter) - and is very likely the present work. Oehme greatly admired Caspar David Friedrich, and the present composition was directly inspired by the latter's Klosterfriedhof im Schnee (Cloister Cemetery in the Snow) of 1819.