Franz Ludwig Catel - A Monk Meditating in a Cloister - image-1

Lot 1517 Dα

Franz Ludwig Catel - A Monk Meditating in a Cloister

Auction 1067 - overview Cologne
21.05.2016, 14:30 - 19th Century Paintings and Drawings
Estimate: 20.000 € - 25.000 €

Franz Ludwig Catel

A Monk Meditating in a Cloister

Oil on canvas, mounted on card. 26 x 21.5 cm.
Signed and dated lower right: F Catel Rom 1843.

This depiction of a monk meditating is dated 1843, making it one of Franz Ludwig Catel's later works. The artist has once again turned to a beloved “composition with a melancholy, contemplative monk beneath vaulting” (A. Stolzenburg in: Exhib. cat. “Franz Ludwig Catel. Italienbilder der Romantik“, op. cit., p. 329), which he used for the first time in a watercolour painted in 1820 and now owned by the Hamburger Kunsthalle. Further examples of this composition show either monks or nuns in cloisters, and belong to the then popular romantic genre of monastic or knightly motifs. The present work is characterised by the strong colours of the sunset. The monk is shown looking down from his monastery on Capri into the distance.

Literature

Exhib. cat. "Der Landschafts- und Genremaler Franz Ludwig Catel (1778-1856)" by Andreas Stolzenburg, Casa die Goethe, Rome, 30.1.-22.4.2007, p. 110, illus. 63. - Exhib. cat. "Franz Ludwig Catel. Italienbilder der Romantik", ed. by Andreas Stolzenburg & Hubertus Gaßner, Hamburger Kunsthalle, 16.10.2015-31.1.2016, p. 329, illus. 1.