August Macke
Kirschenernte in Rheindorf
1913
Pencil drawing on thin, slightly textured paper 27.8/28 x 21.3/21.4 cm Framed under glass. Titled and dated "Kirschenernte in Rheindorf 1913" in pencil verso lower right margin and above with faded, oval estate stamp "Nachlass AUGUST MACKE" (Lugt 1775b), therein inscribed "BZ 24/13" in ink. - Faint diagonal fold above the left corner; overall slightly wavy.
According to information provided by Ursula Heiderich, August Macke sketched this motif in the garden of Franz Kiel's villa in Grau-Rheindorf.
Marked by genius and exaltation, it encapsulates the mood in the summer of 1913 in the circle of the little artist's colony gathered around Macke and Max Ernst, who met there: “We sat in his garden, under the leaves, next to the Rhine, squinting in the radiant summer. [...] Out of our European conversations - we saw Cologne and Bonn as suburbs of Paris, Vienna and Rome - Macke formed the idea of a representative exhibition, the first exhibition of Rhineland Expressionists.” (Karl Otten, cited in Annedore Scherf, Die Rheinische Kunstszene vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg, in: Franz Wilhelm Seiwert und die Rheinische Tradition, Norderstedt 2013, pp. 11/12).
Catalogue Raisonné
Heiderich Zeichnungen 2189 (without illus., slightly erroneous height dimension)
Certificate
We would like to thank Ursula Heiderich, Syke, for additional and confirmatory information.
Provenance
Artist's estate; Hauswedell & Nolte auction, Hamburg, 8.-9.6.1979, cat. no. 813 a; Private collection, Rhineland