Lot 114 D

The American painter Edward Cucuel was initially active in Paris and then later in Munich, and he worked both at Ammersee and Lake Starnberg, where a great number of his paintings were created. The canvas offered here, “Nach der Siesta”, was probably also painted on the shore of one of these two Bavarian lakes. A young woman has sat down on a blanket in the shadow of a tree. In terms of colour, her black-and-white-striped dress stands in captivating contrast to the green and blue surroundings depicted only in a very summary manner. The straw hat which she has laid aside suggests she would like to spend some time at the shore.
Cucuel’s preferred motif – portraits of women in light-filled landscapes – has been realised in a highly effective manner in this early painting. He demonstrates his secure sense of composition and the picturesque, which he unites with an exquisite technique ultimately traceable back to Leo Putz. Applying his colours partly with the brush and partly with the palette knife, he causes the paints to emerge with a three-dimensional quality.