Lake Starnberg with a view of the Wetterstein mountains

Details

Bühler/Krückl 355.
Literature:
Ludwig von Bürkel, Heinrich Bürkel. 1802-1869: A painter’s life in the Biedermeier period, Munich 1940, cat. no. 774;
Hans-Peter Bühler and Albrecht Krückl, Heinrich Bürkel, with catalogue raisonné of the paintings, Munich 1989, p. 265, cat. no. 355, with illus.
Provenance:
Hugo Helbing, Munich, auction, 27 March 1926, lot 10;
Hampel, Munich, auction, 27.6.2024, lot 621;
Private property, Bavaria.

Descrizione

With the midday sun high in the sky, the viewer’s gaze glides over the shallow waters of Lake Starnberg; in the centre of the composition is a jetty on which several women are waiting to take pike, whitefish and char from the fishermen’s nets; next to it is a farmstead with a sheet hanging over the balcony parapet to dry. To the left is a tall tree, the only vertical element in the picture, used as a counterweight to the otherwise horizontal landscape. The low horizon, which makes the foothills of the Alps with the only moderately rising mountain ranges pushed one behind the other in the background appear as an almost flat, expansive land, contrasts with the mighty sky, which is streaked with dense clouds.
Bürkel painted “Lake Starnberg with a View of the Wetterstein Mountains” in several variations (cf. Bühler/Krückl 353-358).