Max Peiffer Watenphul
Ca’ di Desdemona
1949
Watercolour and pencil drawing on firm, rough card 48.3/7 x 35.0/9 cm Framed under glass. Signed and dated 'Peiffer Watenphul Venezia 49' in pencil lower right. - In fine condition. The margins of the card slightly irregular.
Peiffer Watenphul resided in Venice from 1946 to 1959, where he lived with his sister Grace for some time, who was married to the Italian architect Enrico Pasqualucci.
This watercolour shows a view of the slender Palazzo on the Grand Canal called "Ca' di Desdemona" after Shakespeare's "Othello", but actually named Contarini-Fasan. The artist has concentrated less on the architectural features of the building, but approached the motif in a spiritual way, emphasising the poetic interplay of colour.
Watenphul's pictures of Venice display a new, highly abstract style in which he has largely dispensed with contrast (cf. Stephan von Wiese, Die Lagune im Sfumato; in: Max Peiffer Watenphul. Von Weimar nach Italien. Walter Steiner/Mario-Andreas von Lüttichau (ed.), Cologne 1999, p. 91 f.).
Catalogue Raisonné
Watenphul Pasqualucci / Pasqualucci A 654
Provenance
Private possession, Frankfurt; Private possession, Lower Saxony
Exhibitions
Darmstadt 1972 (Kunsthalle), Max Peiffer Watenphul. Gemälde, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, no. 96 (with a label to the reverse of the frame backing card); Frankfurt 1976 (Westend Galerie), Max Peiffer Wathenphul. Ölbilder, Aquarelle, Lithographien und frühe Mexikoarbeiten, without cat. no.