Lot 11 D

The floral still life “Zinnien und weiße Begonie” from the Münter estate once again demonstrates her artistic talent for bringing together two simple arrangements of flowers in a harmonious manner. A white begonia and a bouquet of yellow and reddish zinnias stand on a round table or tray set before a luminously blue ground. As she wrote to Johannes Eichner, the romantic companion of her later life, zinnias were among her favourite flowers, because they reminded her of the garden at her parents’ house in Herford: “My mother planted a round flower bed full of zinnias. They come in every colour. There is nothing more beautiful than the bold and the waning, faded tones of these flowers. They are like old pieces of fabric. I still loved them when I got old and now I go in my garden and paint them a lot” (Gabriele Münter – Johannes Eichner Stiftung, manuscript). With this watercolour, Münter refers back to the larger oil painting of the same name from 1934 (private collection).