Kanzelpredigt in der Pfarrkirche zu Innsbruck

The present work is being offered for sale pursuant to an agreement between the consignor and the Heirs of Kurt and Henriette Hirschland. This resolves any dispute over ownership of the work and title will pass to the buyer.

Adolph von Menzel was fascinated by the splendour of Tyrolean baroque churches. Having first travelled to the capital, Innsbruck, in the summer of 1859, he repeatedly returned. He was drawn to the play of light over the ornate surfaces and the chiaroscuro playing over groups of figures in the lavish enclosed environments.

Although he had painted Gothic and Romanesque churches since the 1830s, no other style appealed to him like the Catholic style and the theatrical pomp of its celebrations. Marie Ursula Riemann-Reyher explores the genesis of this painting:

'In 1881 Menzel went on a long summer tour which took him first to Switzerland, then to the southern Tyrol and northern Italy, finishing with a stop-off in Innsbruck on the way back. It was here that he had the idea for this small painting. From the altar of the then parish church of St Jacques (a 'sacred episcopal church' since 1964) the eye moves to the pulpit and occupied pews. But Menzel creates an impression rather than a replica of reality. Not content with modifying the pulpit by Nicholas Moll, the Tyrolean sculptor, he heightens the imposing church pillars, both here and in the drawings, pillars which date from the end of the baroque period... With a few exceptions… Menzel's church interiors are peopled by congregations and vergers, and appear as places of urban communication.' (Eds. C. Keish, M.U. Riemann-Reyher, Adolf Menzel 1815-1905 Between Romanticism and Impressionism, New Haven & London, 1996, p. 411).

Riemann-Reyher observes the contrast between the women seated in the pews in bright colours against the group of men wearing dark colours, viewed from behind in the foreground. Of the portrayal of the church itself, she notes how Menzel uses the viewer’s imagination, as much as his own exceptionally skilled draftsmanship to attain an awe-inspiring rendering of the building, ‘In the gigantic area of the parish church…only the two pillars and a small part of the wall between is visible. The pillars, which are depicted much larger than their actual size, alone create the impression of a colossal church of resplendent colour’ (ibid. p. 411).

This jewel-like painting was once in the collection of the German banker Kurt Hirschland and his wife, Henriette, known also as Harrie. Together they were pre-eminent art collectors with a particular eye for nineteenth-century artists, and part of the long-established and philanthropic banking family in Essen, with Kurt running the Simon Hirschland bank, founded in 1841, alongside his brother Dr Georg Hirschland. In 1936 due to the increasingly difficult situation under the Nazi regime, Kurt and Harrie, who were Jewish, left Germany. Kurt turned to Switzerland and Harrie to Amsterdam, formally dividing their assets as a pre-emptive step, which also included photographing their art collection, this Menzel included. The Hirschland bank was ‘aryanised’ in 1938 and other family members were forced to emigrate to the US, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The Menzel travelled to Amsterdam to Harrie’s new home at Johannes Vermeerstraat 26. However, this respite was short-lived. Harrie, again prescient of the oncoming threat, left for the United States in 1939. Not long after the German forces occupied The Netherlands in May 1940, Harrie’s possessions were packed up and stored with the De Gruijter & Co. shipping company under the name of her brother-in-law Franz, a US citizen, hoping that this move would protect her belongings before shipment.

Unfortunately this was in vain and Harrie Hirschland’s possessions were confiscated as “enemy assets” by the Sammelverwaltung feindlicher Haushaltsgeräte or “SfH” (the Collective Administration of Enemy Household Appliances) in the Hague on April 14, 1943. While some of Harrie’s confiscated artworks were sold via auction in Rotterdam, other artworks may have been sold in Germany. The path that this Menzel took remains unknown.