Lot 377 D

This watercolour dating to the early 1920s is distinguished by the rather unusual square format of the sheet of laid paper: a painting-like format so to speak. Furthermore, in its centred composition, it cites a motif that is often used in - and is directly classic for - painted pictures: drawing the viewer into the landscape by means of the emphatic perspective, here through a mountain stream winding out of the valley and flowing forward between its broad banks. Hans Geissler has kindly pointed out that there is a reference to precisely this watercolour created outside Oberstdorf under the entry for the painting “Berg im Allgäu” in Andreas Hüneke's catalogue (Hüneke 1923-8). In 1923 a number of paintings were created in this valley with its distinctive rock formations (see Hüneke 1923-5 “Graues Endtal” to 1923-10 “Kleine Allgäuer Landschaft”), and these reflect the mountain valley in the different seasons. Based on the autumnal atmosphere of this watercolour and its composition, it might be even more aptly compared with “Fluss im Gebirge”, a painting that was painted from a similar vantage point. “Fluss im Gebirge”, which had already entered the collection of the Hamburger Kunsthalle in 1924, was confiscated as a “degenerate” work in 1937 (see comparative illus.).