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17 Auction on 27 March 2020 FromCorot to Liebermann The painters of the Barbizon School, including Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, freed early 19 th century academic landscape painting from formal constraints. They painted their works en plein air , close to the actual subjects and marked by their sensory impressions of nature. With small-format paysages intimes (ill. 4), Corot and others depicted the incidental, showed excerpts from nature and emphasized the atmospheric quality of their works, thereby paving the way for the later Im- pressionists. Max Liebermann's studies and paintings of the Wann- see Garden have a firm place in the history of early 20 th century German painting. In 1909, the artist, who was already well-established in Berlin, acquired an exten- sive plot of land on the Wannsee where he built a dis- tinguished country house. From then on, the house and its garden became recurrent motifs for Lieber- mann's paintings (ill. 2). The play of light and colours of the green paradise, which changes over the seasons, were a welcome contrast to the big city life around his town house on the Pariser Platz, next to the Branden- burg Gate. Another fine testimony to Liebermann's affection for Berlin is the depiction of skaters in the Tiergarten (ill. 3). Liebermann's German Impression- ism was ignited by the hustle and bustle on the ice during the extremely cold winter of 1921: with his typ- ical restless style, he captured the moving figures as if they were alive. Lovis Corinth was not only Liebermann's contempo- rary, but also his companion. Not only in the Berlin years from 1901, but already earlier during the Secession exhibitions, the two were very close, which is reflected in several portraits. Corinth's genre portrait "Mask with White Dress" (ill. 1) is also part of this creative phase, in which he captures the relaxed mood at a masked ball with loose brushstrokes. The person depicted is Char- lotte Berend, whom the artist had met at the time and married in 1904. The motif of the black mask appears several times in Corinth's œuvre, certainly influenced by the artist's proximity to the theatre. The legendary director and theatre impresario Max Reinhardt was among his Berlin circle of friends and Corinth created stage sets and costumes for his productions. 1 Lovis Corinth. Mask with white dress. 1902. Oil on canvas. 78.5 × 63.5 cm. Estimate: CHF 100 000/150 000 2 Max Liebermann. Flowered terrace in the Wannsee garden facing north. 1918. Oil on board. 50 × 75 cm. Estimate: CHF 250 000/350 000 3 Max Liebermann. Skaters in the Tiergarten. 1921. Oil on canvas. 49 × 53 cm. Estimate: CHF 150 000/200 000 4 Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot. Passiance. 1872. Oil on canvas. 51 × 61.5 cm. Estimate: CHF 40 000/60 000 FOR FURTHER INFORMATION 19 TH CENTURY PAINTINGS Karoline Weser weser@kollerauctions.com IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN ART Fabio Sidler sidler@kollerauctions.com ONLINE CATALOGUES www.kollerauctions.com 2 3 4