Lot 214 D

Szklarska Poręba, formerly known as Schreiberhau, is a small Lower Silesian town in the Giant Mountains, not far from Wrocław. In 1934 Hans Purrmann went there to visit the art historian, writer and collector Dr Johannes Guthmann (1876-1956), who was a friend of the family of Gerhart Hauptmann and had been living near them since the early 1920s. The charming highland landscape inspired Purrmann to create a number of paintings that year.
Purrmann and Guthmann, who was from a wealthy family, had already met in Berlin in 1916. Guthmann subsequently purchased a large number of the artist’s works. Along with Josef Kohl-Weigand, who was a generation younger, Johannes Guthmann was among the most important private collectors of Purrmann’s work, and the two also shared a passion for the art of Max Slevogt.