Figural and Animal pieces

Figuren u. Thierstücke. I.: An album of drawings of daily life and of the animal world

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Figural and Animal pieces
Figuren u. Thierstücke. I.: An album of drawings of daily life and of the animal world
inscribed with the title on a lable attached to the cover, the album with forty-three leaves, many extensively inscribed with commentaries relating to twenty-four attached drawings:
1. Bier brauen und Brot backen geräth nicht alle Tage (Brewing beer and baking bread does not always turn out well): A peasant by a bread oven (inscribed and dated 'Alsterkrug der 13 Juni 1808')
2. A peasant by a sealed bread oven (dated '20 Dec 1814')
3. Der Hahn auf der Mistgrube (The rooster on the dung heap): A peasant feeding stock in a barn, a rooster to the left
4. Wer das kleine nicht ehrt, ist des Grossen nicht wert (Who needs not a penny will never have any): Peasants gathering firewod on the seashore
5. A dog and a cat fighting over three fish
6. Two peasants presented with a bill by an inn-keeper, after Jan Steen 7. In der Schenke (In the tavern): Six figures smoking in an inn
8. Four peasants playing cards in a tavern
9. Three of the Duke of Alva's soldiers playing cards, after Peter Quast
10. The preceding image repeated
11. Vereinte Kraft (United Strength): Three peasants lifting a felled trunk, two horses to the left
12. Der Sonnenstrahl (The Sunbeam): A girl peeling potatoes in a sunlit pantry
13. Betrug herrscht überall (Deception is everywhere): Peasants and merchants at market
14. Nach gethaner Arbeit ist gut ruhen (Once the work is done, rest is well deserved): Fout labourers recling in a field, a hilltown beyond 15. A fish-wife repairing nets assisted by five children, fish drying beyond
16. Auf einer Reise nach Hamburg den 30 September 1808 (On a journey to Hamburg on 10 September 1808): Fishermen with their catch in a coastal village
17. Italien ist ein reiches und gesegnetes Land voller Bettler (Italy is a rich and blessed land full of beggars): A peasant, with his donkey, asleep by a path, an Italianate landscape beyond
18. Dudelsackpfeifer (The Bagpiper): Two pipers before an altar to the Virgin
19. A street butcher robbed of his sausages by a pack of cats
20. A family of Lapps by a hut (inscribed and dated 'Nach der Nathur gezeichnet 18 Sep. 1805 Hamburg: Lappländer')
21. Two eagles attacking a hunting dog and a hare, two hunters beyond
22. Eheharmonie (Marital bliss): A barrel-maker scolded by his wife, a dog and a cat fighting beyond
23. A team of coopers fitting metal bands to a barrel over a fire
24. Ja, sogar die toten Fische gähnen (Yes, even the dead fish are yawning): Three woman preparing fruit, game and fish, and talking constantly
black chalk, pen and brown ink, watercolor, some heightened with white, in contemporary mounts
The album: 17¼ x 12 in. (440 x 302 mm.); The drawings approximately 8 x 13 in. (203 x 330 mm.); and A watercolor of a couple with an infant relaxing on a Neapolitan quay, Vesuvius across the bay beyond, and another of a swineherd driving swimming pigs across a river, dated and inscribed 'Eystrup A^o. 1815 Nach der Natur gezeichnet.' (26)

Lot Essay

The composition for Der Sonnenstrahl (12) was used by Tischbein for a painting in oils now in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg (Katalog der alten Meister der Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, 1956, no. 579). Another drawing for the composition, dated to 1803 by Hermann Mildenberger, is in the Landesmuseum, Oldenburg (Mildenberger, 1986, no. 271).
(1) Illustrated in plate IV, p. 135.

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