Lot 2238 Dα

This previously unknown watercolour by Eduard Gaertner relates to a lost painting by the artist and a further lost watercolour of which a photograph can be found in the central archive of the Staatliche Museen in Berlin (I. Wirth op. cit. no. 237, not illustrated here). All three works were created in 1838.
The lost watercolour - of which we have checked the old photograph in the aforementioned archive - has the same dimensions as the present sheet and is also signed and dated lower right. The art dealer W. A. Luz offered to sell it to the Berlin Museum in 1936, without success. It differs only slightly from our sheet which in turn resurfaced recently in a souvenir album from a Hungarian private collection. The only difference is in the number of horses and the missing sentries.
Prof. Dr. Helmut Börsch-Supan, whom we would like to thank for his valuable advice, drew our attention to the fact that the coach could be that of Princess von Liegnitz who was resident at that time in the Prinzessinnen Palais. She had been in a morganatic marriage to King Friedrich Wilhelm II since 1824.
The view of the palace on the Boulevard Unter den Linden is partially concealed by tall deciduous trees, beneath which the garden with its paths, borders and sculptures is depicted with the rich detail characteristic for Gaertner. The watercolour is also interesting for this reason as it shows a preeminent location in the heart of historical Berlin.