Lot Essay
August Seidel, a Munich-born artist, was primarily influenced by John Constable (1776-1837) and the Barbizon School artists. The present work, with its dramatic emphasis on the turbulent skies above a rural landscape, shows the powerful bravura brushstrokes Seidel employed to suggest the movement of raindrops pouring from the clouds; the mark of an artist whose style was reaching towards the edges of Impressionism.