Georg Bothmann (Botmann) - Portrait of the Andreas Matthiessen Family - image-1

Lot 135 Dα

Georg Bothmann (Botmann) - Portrait of the Andreas Matthiessen Family

Auction 1114 - overview Cologne
19.09.2018, 14:30 - Paintings 15th-19th C.
Estimate: 4.000 € - 5.000 €

Georg Bothmann (Botmann)

Portrait of the Andreas Matthiessen Family

Oil on canvas. 69 x 100.5 cm.
Signed and dated lower left: G. Bothmann 1845.

The present work depicts the family of Andreas Matthiessen, the German owner of a porcelain factory in St. Petersburg. The back of the (possibly original) frame bears a hand-written label listing the family members, including "Adele, Gräfin Ozarowska geb. Matthiessen", which could be the girl seated at the front in the white dress, who later married into the aristocratic Ozarowski family. The painting is currently in the ownership of descendants and relatives of the Matthiesen family.
Little is known of the artist who painted this work. Like his patron, Bothmann is thought also to have originally come from Germany. He may have known the portrait of Ch. L. Herrström and his wife kept in the St. Annen-Museum in Lübeck. Whilst several art encyclopedias have previously assumed that Bothmann moved to Russia in 1846, the fact that the present work is dated 1845 proves that he arrived a full year earlier. When in Russia, Bothmann painted portraits of Tsars Nicholas I and Alexander II.

Provenance

In family ownership to the descendents of Andreas Matthiessen.