.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Liebermann first visited Holland in 1871 at the age of twenty four, a visit which began a long and artistically fruitful relationship with the country which was to last for more than forty years and provide the artist with a generous supply of painterly motifs. Liebermann's second trip to Holland saw him visit Scheveningen and Amsterdam before journeying to Leyden, where he painted the gardens of the renowned waterside restaurant, De Oude Vink. De Oude Vink was a popular destination for summer trips on Sundays and attracted a huge amount of visitors to its picturesque location.
In contrast to Liebermann's early paintings of the 1880s and 1890s, where motifs were predominantly taken from rural life, his subsequent work was characterised by themes drawn from urban leisure in much the same way as Manet, Monet and Renoir had overturned the hierarchy of subject matter in French painting at the end of the Second Empire. Liebermann thus turned his attention to scenes of elegant bourgeois families strolling through zoos and parks, tennis players, beer gardens, and, as in the present work, open-air restaurants. Liebermann's depictions of the bustling summer atmosphere of De Oude Vink therefore belong to a long series of paintings of restaurant and beer gardens.
Oude Vink is a powerful example of the richly expressive brushwork and vigorous painterly manner that characterises Liebermann's mature ouput. As an artist at the height of his powers, Liebermann's most expressive pictures from this time also display a mastery of light effects and a lively impressionistic handling of paint. Liebermann's touch, texture and compositional sense in these late restaurant and beer garden pictures is rarely bettered. The thickly impasted surface of the present work, particularly in the trees, displays his mastery of the palette knife and overall superb handling of his paint surface; at more than 60 years of age, Liebermann's style is fresh and vivacious, the brushstrokes loose and expressive.
The present work, executed at a pivotal time in Liebermann's career, not only has an extensive exhibition and publication history, particularly throughout the 1910s and the 1920s, but can also claim exceptional early provenance: it was bought directly from Liebermann in 1911 by Paul Cassirer, the influential modern art dealer and publisher, who exhibited it at his gallery in November the same year. The painting has also been owned by Adolf Rothermundt, the Dresden-Blasewitz based collector, from whom Cassirer re-acquired the painting in 1924, and Dr Fritz Nathan of St. Gallen; three of the most renowned names in the history of twentieth century German art collecting.
In contrast to Liebermann's early paintings of the 1880s and 1890s, where motifs were predominantly taken from rural life, his subsequent work was characterised by themes drawn from urban leisure in much the same way as Manet, Monet and Renoir had overturned the hierarchy of subject matter in French painting at the end of the Second Empire. Liebermann thus turned his attention to scenes of elegant bourgeois families strolling through zoos and parks, tennis players, beer gardens, and, as in the present work, open-air restaurants. Liebermann's depictions of the bustling summer atmosphere of De Oude Vink therefore belong to a long series of paintings of restaurant and beer gardens.
Oude Vink is a powerful example of the richly expressive brushwork and vigorous painterly manner that characterises Liebermann's mature ouput. As an artist at the height of his powers, Liebermann's most expressive pictures from this time also display a mastery of light effects and a lively impressionistic handling of paint. Liebermann's touch, texture and compositional sense in these late restaurant and beer garden pictures is rarely bettered. The thickly impasted surface of the present work, particularly in the trees, displays his mastery of the palette knife and overall superb handling of his paint surface; at more than 60 years of age, Liebermann's style is fresh and vivacious, the brushstrokes loose and expressive.
The present work, executed at a pivotal time in Liebermann's career, not only has an extensive exhibition and publication history, particularly throughout the 1910s and the 1920s, but can also claim exceptional early provenance: it was bought directly from Liebermann in 1911 by Paul Cassirer, the influential modern art dealer and publisher, who exhibited it at his gallery in November the same year. The painting has also been owned by Adolf Rothermundt, the Dresden-Blasewitz based collector, from whom Cassirer re-acquired the painting in 1924, and Dr Fritz Nathan of St. Gallen; three of the most renowned names in the history of twentieth century German art collecting.