Adolph von Menzel

Robert Scholtz, Budapest (L.2241),

his sale, Stuttgart, H.G. Gutekunst, 10-13 May 1911, lot 848;

with La Tâche Fine Art, Vaduz, Liechtenstein, by 2007,

William Louis-Dreyfus, Mount Kisco, New York (acquired from the above in 2007),

The Louis-Dreyfus Family Collections (by descent from the above in 2016)

Hamburg, Le Claire Kunst, ‘A World caught with the eye and held by the pencil’: Drawings by Adolph Menzel, 2019, Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, no. 35

This finely preserved and beautifully atmospheric sheet is a characteristic example of the drawings Menzel made in the 1880s while on summer trips to Switzerland and the South Tyrol. Often depicting rustic alpine farmhouses, barns, bridges and footways, the artist was, as is so clearly evident in the present work, attracted by the unprepossessing qualities of these rustic structures.