Lot 115 Dα

The present work is based on a composition devised by Ludwig Knaus following his first sojourn to the Black Forest in 1851. The first version of the piece shows a dark tavern interior with two tricksters cheating a young farmer at cards and a group of peasants laughing and drinking at a table in the background. This first version was quickly purchased by the Düsseldorf gallery association in 1851, the year it was completed. The work cemented the artist's fame and is still kept in the Museum Kunstpalast to this day. Due to the success of the original, Knaus decided to create a further version in the same year, reducing the scope of the image and dispensing with the group of peasants in the background to concentrate on the group of cheating card players, the young farmer and his daughter in the foreground. The present work follows the composition of this second piece, which was purchased by the Leipzig Kunstverein for the Städtisches Museum in 1853, and was presumably intended as a preparatory sketch or further version. Composition studies and sketches for the Düsseldorf version are kept in the Stuttgart state gallery and the Berlin state museums.