Lot 26 D α

This “View of Lake Tegernsee from Neureuth” was hidden away for decades in the possession of Bavarian nobility and is now a valuable and interesting addition to the known oeuvre of Wilhelm von Kobell, which was published by Siegfried Wichmann in 1970.

Wilhelm von Kobell is one of the most important Munich landscape painters of the early 19th century, a genre that flourished in the first two decades during and after the Napoleonic Wars, primarily thanks to the active interest and patronage of the ruling royal family. In this context, Kobell's extensive correspondence with King Maximilian I. Joseph and Crown Prince Ludwig, later King Ludwig I, is impressive, as can be read in detail in Wichmann's publication.
Three reference works allow us to attribute and date this exceptionally finely painted and atmospheric new discovery. First and foremost, there is a painting from the same location in 1833, which is now in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich (fig. 1; inv. no. L334; Wichmann op. cit., no. 1515). It bears the same title, but differs from our work mainly in the staffage: children dressed in traditional costumes and a few sheep there, a rider with two other horses, a woman and a boy here. What both paintings have in common is the abundance of details and buildings on the hillside and along the lake shore, with Tegernsee Castle standing out in the center of the painting. The title of the painting refers to the painter's location, namely a popular vantage point on the hiking trail to the Neureuth inn.
Two other paintings with the title “Reiter am Tegernsee” (Horseman at Lake Tegernsee; fig. 2), created a year earlier, are also comparable, one in the Berlin National Gallery and the second in private ownership (Sotheby's, London, December 12, 2018, Lot 1) (S. Wichmann op. cit. nos. 1504 and 1505). While a storm is brewing in these two compositions, ours is characterized by the clear, transparent atmosphere of the Bavarian highlands, which hardly any other painter of his time was able to capture on canvas as beautifully as Wilhelm Kobell.
Alfred Lichtwark admired the “beauty and objectivity of Wilhelm Kobell's austere compositions.” Erich Steingräber, on the other hand, counted him “among those artists who are able to pick out the typical from the wealth of individual observations” – two fitting descriptions that are beautifully confirmed in this painting, created around 1832/33.

Abb. 1/Fig. 1: Wilhelm von Kobell, Blick auf den Tegernsee / View of Lake Tegernsee, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen - Neue Pinakothek München © bpk | Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen.

Abb. 2/Fig. 2: Wilhelm von Kobell, Reiter am Tegernsee / Horsemen at Lake Tegernsee, Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin © bpk / Nationalgalerie, SMB / Jörg P. Anders.