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Lot Essay
Two preparatory drawings in pencil made in connection with the present work are in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, nos. N2229 and N2230. The group can be dated to 1840-45. Menzel was clearly very attached to the present drawing as he kept it in his own collection until his death.
These hedgehogs do not appear in a painted composition by Menzel, but seem to have been intended as a finished composition similar to the drawings of animals in watercolor and bodycolor in the so-called Kinderalbum painted in the 1860s and 1870s for his sister's children and now in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (M.U. Riemann-Reyher, Adolph von Menzel: das Kinderalbum, Berlin, 1997).
Dr Marie Ursula Riemann-Reyher confirmed the attribution to the previous owner.
These hedgehogs do not appear in a painted composition by Menzel, but seem to have been intended as a finished composition similar to the drawings of animals in watercolor and bodycolor in the so-called Kinderalbum painted in the 1860s and 1870s for his sister's children and now in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (M.U. Riemann-Reyher, Adolph von Menzel: das Kinderalbum, Berlin, 1997).
Dr Marie Ursula Riemann-Reyher confirmed the attribution to the previous owner.