Andreas Achenbach - The Bookworm - image-1

Lot 1720 Dα

Andreas Achenbach - The Bookworm

Auction 1209 - overview Cologne
19.11.2022, 11:00 - Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture 14th-19th Centuries
Estimate: 15.000 € - 20.000 €
Result: 17.640 € (incl. premium)
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Andreas Achenbach

The Bookworm

Oil on panel. 46.5 x 61 cm.
Signed lower right: A. Achenbach.

The present work is one of Andreas Achenbach's rare genre scenes. The contrast between the monk industriously sweeping the doorway and the wistful monk reading at the foot of a staircase brings to mind the question of the primacy of vita activa or vita contemplativa, which was already discussed in ancient philosophy. Fritz Krostewitz (1860-1913) created an etching after the painting (cf. Wolfgang Peiffer: Andreas Achenbach - Das druckgraphische Werk, Oberhausen, 2014, p. 255 with illustration).

Provenance

Galerie Schöninger, Munich 1956. - Coll. Georg Schäfer, Schweinfurt (labelled on the reverse). - Private collection, USA. - Lempertz auction 920, Cologne, 17.5.2008, lot 1353. - Private collection, Bergisches Land.

Literature

Rolf Wedewer & Jens Christian Jensen (ed.): Die Idylle. Eine Bildform im Wandel zwischen Hoffnung und Wirklichkeit 1750-1930, Cologne 1986, illus. 23.

Exhibitions

Träume verwehen nicht. Idylle im Wandel zwischen 1750 und 1930, Leverkusen, Museum Morsbroich, Städtisches Museum Leverkusen, 20.12.1986-22.2.1987 and Kiel, Kunsthalle, 1.3.-5.4.1987 (with a label of the company Hasenkamp on the reverse).