Lot 1543 Dα

The Austrian artist Carl Schuch came from a wealthy family, which enabled him to lead a financially independent lifestyle. This was presumably why he only exhibited two of his works publically during his lifetime. It was only after his death that his oeuvre became known to a larger audience, and works were purchased by numerous museums. Two recent, retrospective exhibitions in Mannheim and Munich (1986) and in Vienna (2012) secured this artist's status in Europe.
Schuch's formative years were somewhat unsettled, with frequent moves from place to place. After presumably cutting short his studies in Vienna, he undertook various sojourns with stays in Italy, Munich, Belgium, Holland and Mark Brandenburg. He resided in Paris as of 1882, before returning to his home town of Vienna in 1894 in the wake of increasing mental health issues. The artist spent the last years of his life in a “Private Sanatorium for the Emotionally Disturbed”.
The present work was painted during the years of his Paris phase, representing both the climax and termination of Schuch's artistic career. In his Paris studio he concentrated primarily on still life painting, and his works are frequently compared to those of his contemporary Cézanne. Stephan Koja considers this similarity to be due to the fact that “both artists devoted themselves to persistent and contemplative study, often of very ordinary motifs, in order to achieve perfection […]” (exhib. cat. „Carl Schuch. Ein europäischer Maler“, Vienna, Belvedere, 26.6.-14.10.2012, p. 41). However, in contrast to Cézanne, Schuch utilises a more reserved colour palette and stronger chiaroscuro effects, presumably due to his more intensive reception of the old masters.
The exhibition catalogue for the 2012 exhibition in Vienna included transcripts of the two notebooks which Schuch kept in Venice and the two from Paris. Page 31v of the second Parisian notebook, kept during 1885, contains detailed annotations on the colour palette used in this work. A facsimile of the page was already included in the Mannheim/Munich exhibition catalogue of 1986 (op. cit., p. 100). The catalogue of the exhibition in Munich in 1979, in which the present work was also featured, reads: “This work, painted in glowing, pastose colours, in which the artist has dispensed with the depiction of realistic details or convincing materiality to concentrate on the pure expression of blooming, growth and fragrance, is a product of his later Parisian phase and is among the masterpieces of this period.” (exhib. cat. Munich 1979, op. cit. p. 282).

This work will be included as no. 497 of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné prepared by the Carl Schuch Gesellschaft, Zurich, at the moment.