Lot 457 D

“The watercolour was created in March of 1908 in Cospeda, a village located above Jena, where Nolde had rented a room at the inn 'Grüner Baum zur Nachtigall' for an extended period of time. Napoleon had already stayed there. Nolde discovered watercolour painting with a series of landscape watercolours. Some of these were painted outside in the ice and snow, and ice crystals and snowflakes have left behind distinctive textures in the painting. In his creative process Nolde sought the 'cooperation of nature', as he referred to it. 'In the evening, the farmers and wagoners sat for me as models without knowing it', he writes in the second volume of his autobiography 'Jahre der Kämpfe' (7th ed., Cologne 2002, p. 90). In the form of rapid and direct notations, he painted and drew the colourful life surrounding him at the inn: country people drinking, playing cards and excitedly debating.
Nolde gave this little watercolour to a student in the Palatinate with special greetings in June of 1947; the student had already sought contact with the painter in 1937, at the age of 18, and carried on a correspondence with him during the war years and until 1952. Over 70 letters, postcards and picture postcards can be found in the archive at Seebüll.” (Manfred Reuther in his expertise)
In the greeting of 10 June 1947, which is preserved in the archive, Nolde gives the little work the title “Der Zecher”. At that time Nolde was very proud of these early sheets, which were the first to be created in such a spontaneous and free way: “I had worked excessively, I happily packed all of the watercolours together and carried them myself, not showing them to anyone.” (Emil Nolde, in: op. cit., Flensburg n.d., p. 90)