Sale: 360 / Modern Art, Dec. 12. 2009 in Munich Lot 164

 
Max Peiffer Watenphul - Mohn mit chinesischer Schale


164
Max Peiffer Watenphul
Mohn mit chinesischer Schale, 1938.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 18,000 / $ 19,440
Sold:
€ 31,720 / $ 34,257

(incl. surcharge)

Oil on canvas
Watenphul Pasqualucci/Pasqualucci G 271. Monogrammed and dated upper left. 66 x 51 cm (25,9 x 20 in)

PROVENANCE: Private collection Salzburg (acquired directly from the artist).
Private collection USA.

In 1924 Watenphul went to Salzburg for the first time, where he worked in enamel painting in the workshop of Maria Cyrenius. He was so fascinated by the city that he returned on numerous occasions up until the mid 1960s. As of 1933 Watenphul spent most of the time in his parent's house in Hattingen, where the big garden is a source of inspiration for his flower pictures, which seem to be an expression of the pleasure and joy he must have felt in this carefree time. But also during the following years, when the artist faced more and more difficulties because of the National Socialist dictatorship in Germany, the flower still life, as well as Italian landscapes with ruins and his melancholic views of Venice, remain central topics of his oeuvre, aloof any thoughts of perishability. Watenphul celebrated beauty and exotic in the still lives of the 1930s, mostly by combining cut flowers in full bloom with east Asian elements, as it is the case with this work. In a letter to Maria Cyrus Watenphul enthuses about the flower pictures from those years: "I have made so many fine new works. Flowers, more beautiful than ever before, and so much more picturesque. Painting is the only thing
left for me in life." [JS].




164
Max Peiffer Watenphul
Mohn mit chinesischer Schale, 1938.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 18,000 / $ 19,440
Sold:
€ 31,720 / $ 34,257

(incl. surcharge)