Koller View 2/22

13 Preview of the Swiss Art Auction on 1 July 2022 Landscape in Parallels The art-loving Swiss paper manufacturer Oscar Miller (1862–1934) was not only one of the most important collectors of Swissmodern art, hewas also a published art critic. The landscape by Ferdinand Hodler offered in our 1 July auction, showing a path lined with young chestnut trees in front of the Jura mountain range in the area of Solothurn, was manifestly one of his fa- vourite pieces (ill. 2). In terms of motif and colour, the painting, with its free brushwork and strong colour- ing, is related to ‘Autumn Evening’ (now in the Musée d’art et d’histoire Neuchâtel), painted about six years earlier. In order to give this painting a clear structure, Hodler employed one of his most important pictorial principles: Parallelism. Oscar Miller’s high-calibre collection comprised about three hundred works, many of which are now in the Kunstmuseum Solothurn. Miller acquired his first work by Hodler in 1897, marking the beginning of a long-term relationship between the artist and collec- tor, who would eventually own around twenty Hodler paint- ings. The entrepreneur later offered his Hodlers for sale to the Gottfried Keller Founda- tion, keeping only the present work for himself. It remained in the family until 2012, and was never shown publicly. ‘Fox with Jay’ from 1926 is one of the most magnificent animal portraits by Adolf Di- etrich (ill. 3). Heinrich Am- mann lavished praise on this painting as early as 1977 in his monograph on the artist: ‘The beauty of its fur has been brought out by the painter’s pointed brush with unheard-of delicacy and precision. The varying length, thickness, softness, colouring and position of the fur appears precisely differentiated and graduated. Its pal- pable quality is fascinatingly revealed: on the head and legs short, taut and lying close; on the neck and shoul- ders long, soft and wavy; the crest on the back short, stiff and bristly; the tail hairs long, bushy, loose and silky soft. The background and forest floor are rhythmical- ly and delightfully enlivened by barky pine trunks and a black and white interplay of shapes in the patches of snow; the carpet of moss on the black ground in the right-hand corner counterbalances the left-hand side with the captured jay on the snow’. The painting, one of Dietrich’s most important works, was created in his mid-twenties, at the height of his career. He had be- come successful thanks to solo museum exhibitions and a book publication. With his impressive portraits, Albert Anker left his mark on Swiss art at the end of the 19 th century. The ex- traordinary painterly quality of the girl with a cat is rem- iniscent of the early Impressionist movement in Paris, where Anker spent his winters. The painting has been in an important private collection for several decades, and is only now on the market again (ill 1.). 2 3 © 2022, ProLitteris, Zurich