Lot 225 Dα

In Schloss Hartmannsberg, in Upper Bavaria's lake district, north-west of the Chiemsee, Leo Putz had discovered the ideal place for his open-air painting in the summer and autumn months of the years 1909 and 1914. This idyllic region of lakes and moors offered countless motifs to the painter and his circle of friends, including his former pupils Frieda Blell and Clara Lotte von Marcard. For Putz as well as his artist friends and pupils, such as Edward Cucuel, Hartmannsberg became an important meeting place and site of artistic exchange; as a motif, he incorporated it into numerous paintings from these years and the following period.
Leo Putz repeatedly turned his attention to the charming theme of the portrait of a lady in a rowing boat. It is often Frieda Blell, Putz's future wife, and in our work he has painted her from the shore - seated in a boat with a wide-brimmed Florentine straw hat. In the present painting the young woman seems to be about to moor her boat; with the oars lying in the water and the bow touching the shore, she turns directly towards the viewer. With a sure brush and nonetheless entirely at ease, Putz has articulated the spontaneity of this romantic scene full of light and colour.