Heinrich Bürkel
Tussle Outside an Inn
Oil on canvas. 33 x 46.5 cm.
Signed lower left: H BÜRKEL (HB conjoined).
"Heinrich Bürkel entered the Munich Art Academy in 1824. His early works are heavily inspired by the 17th century Netherlandish paintings which he was able to study in person in Schleissheim Castle. However, numerous sojourns throughout Upper Bavaria and Tyrol in the following years led him to become primarily a painter of the people and everyday life of the Alpine Region.
His work “Wirtshaus im Gebirge” (Tavern in the Mountains) from 1830 which is today housed in the Nationalgalerie in Berlin marks a milestone in Bürkel's career (Bühler/Krückl 1989, op. cit., p. 239, no. 146). This piece shows a lively group of figures flanked on one side by the gable of an Alpine tavern with a panoramic view of the mountains in the background and would be the inspiration for many later works by the artist which were met with great acclaim among his contemporaries. The present canvas “Tussel outside an Inn” is a characteristic example of Bürckel's finely painted works and can be grouped together with several similar paintings executed in the years 1853 to 1856 (Bühler/Krückl 1989, op. cit., p. 214, no. 160-165).
We would like to thank Albrecht Krückl in Munich for confirming the authenticity of this work based upon examination of high-resolution photographs. He will be including the canvas in the supplement for his catalogue raisonné."
Provenance
North German private collection.
Literature
For comparable paintings by Heinrich Bürkel see Hans-Peter Bühler, Albrecht Krückl: Heinrich Bürkel. Mit Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde, Munich 1989.