Lot 465 Dα

When viewing this unusual sheet by Christian Rohlfs in water-based tempera, the moonlight of the work's title immediately becomes recognisable in its diffuse, somewhat pallid quality. The artist, a master in the expert use of colours, invests the simple vegetation with a mysterious, somewhat spectral aura solely through the mood of the light. At the same time, he uses a broad brush to develop his work entirely out of the colours, and he forgoes any sort of contour lines. In the manner of a photographic negative, the directly transparent appearance of the foliage and the characteristic aureole of the sunflower emerge out of the nocturnal darkness.