Otto Modersohn - Brautzug im Frühling - image-1

Lot 65 Dα

Otto Modersohn - Brautzug im Frühling

Auction 1187 - overview Cologne
03.12.2021, 18:00 - Evening Sale - Modern and Contemporary Art
Estimate: 80.000 € - 120.000 €
Result: 62.621 € (incl. premium)

Otto Modersohn

Brautzug im Frühling
1905

Oil on canvas 92 x 135,5 cm Framed. Signed and dated 'Otto Modersohn 05' in black lower left. - Few retouches, one of them backed by canvas patch (old) to the centre of left area of picture. Lower left corner slighty rubbed towards canvas overlap.

In this extraordinary work Otto Modersohn depicts a festive event within the Worpswede community of artists with a vibrant sense of narrative. On 26 August 1905 his sister-in-law Emilie Becker, who went by Milly and was his wife Paula's older sister, married the Basel merchant Johannes Rohland in the town of Scheeßel. In his studio book Modersohn listed this picture under the title “Brautzug im Frühling”. And he has in fact transferred the late-summer wedding into a spring-like setting characterised by cool and fresh tones of colour. He has placed the wedding procession in the middle ground, setting them off against the sky, and shows them marching across a meadow positioned high up in the picture plane. The horizon line thus divides the picture horizontally into two halves. In the meadow dotted with white spring flowers, the opening in the moor in the midst of the festive and pastel-coloured ambience points to the elemental quality of the North German surroundings. Individual trees and bushes with freshly budding leaves loosen up the landscape. Modersohn had already created a very similar composition in 1902, in an oil study entitled “Hochzeitszug” (Otto Modersohn Museum, Fischerhude).
Thus our large-format painting presents an idealised depiction that only partially possesses a documentary character. Two exuberantly frolicking children and a dog lead the wedding procession. The bride and groom are to be seen a little to the left of the centre; the wedding guests, some of whom can be identified, follow at a short distance. The man with the very long stride is Heinrich Vogeler and the woman next to him is his wife Martha. The dark-haired Paula Modersohn-Becker is walking behind them. The parading group of guests in their elegant formal attire are entirely embedded within nature and radiate a peaceful lightheartedness. In this way Otto Modersohn followed older depictions of the theme, especially Ludwig Richter's famous painting of the same name, “Brautzug im Frühling” (1847, Galerie Neue Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden).

Certificate

Recorded in Otto Modersohn's studio book from winter 1904/1905 under the title "Brautzug im Frühling (135-92)"; we would like to thank Rainer Noeres, Otto Modersohn Museum, Fischerhude, for kind additional information.

Provenance

Otto Modersohn's studio (1920s); Private collection, Hamburg, since three generations