Lot 1507 Dα

It is uncertain why Carl Rottmann's Greek and Italian landscapes have always attracted more attention than his numerous south German and Alpine views, as these represent an equally outstanding and important addition to Rottmann's oeuvre.
We know from letters to his wife that the artist was not merely in awe of the imposing mountain scenery, but that for him it was also permeated with symbolism “(…) our aspiration rises higher and higher, until we reach the dizzying heights of art (…)” (E. Bierhaus-Rödiger, op. cit., p. 103). Rottmann hiked through Salzburg in the summer of 1825, and there he painted the watercolour “Obersee mit Watzmann” upon which he based his eponymous oil painting. This was his first example of an expansive landscape view in which the mountain in the distance is framed on both sides by steel rock faces.
The present work, the background of which is dominated by the looming bulk of Dachstein Mountain, was painted around ten years later. Rottmann also based this composition on a plein air watercolour, which is now kept in the Kupferstichkabinett of the Staatliche Sammlungen in Dresden. The Oskar Reinhardt foundation in Winterthur houses a more loosely arranged version of this composition, which Mrs Rödiger-Diruf dated to 1838, a year after the present work. The two works appear to be the only German motifs painted by the artist during the years between his sojourns to Greece in 1835 and 1840.