Koller View 3/22

6 Preview of the 19 th Century Paintings auction on 23 September 2022 King of the skies Preview of the Drawings auction on 23 September 20222 No fewer than three of Eugène Louis Boudin’s (1824–1898) seascapes are featured in the September auc- tion: a view of Le Havre (ill. 1) and two scenes fromTrouville depicting traditional sailing ships at low tide. The picturesque coasts and bustling harbours of Normandy, Boudin’s homeland, are recurring themes in his work. His paintings, executed in plein air with a loose, fluid brushstroke, show the interplay between clouds and sea. Boudin was considered the ‘King of the skies’, especially among his fellow painters in the circles of Courbet and Corot. Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (1803–1862) was descended from a family of painters who helped shape Dutch art over five generations. Together with his wife, Elise Thérèse, he founded a style-defining drawing acad- emy in Cleves and established the school of Cleves Romanticism. Koekkoek’s talent for immersing land- scapes in dramatic light already inspired his contemporaries. In this painting Koekkoek captures the atmos- phere before an approaching storm, the wind-blown trees silhouetted against the sky (ill. 2). Danish artist Peder Mørk Mønsted (1859–1941) is considered a ‘portraitist’ of the landscapes of his native Scandinavia. During his studies in Paris, he encountered the works of the Impressionists and devoted him- self to naturalistic depictions. His realistic river landscape is convincing because of themasterfully rendered reflections on the surface of the water (ill. 3). 1 2 The English artist John Frederick Lewis spent the 1840s in Cairo. By 1864, when he was at the height of his career, his large-scale painting ‘The Hosh’, showing the house of the Coptic patriarch in Cairo, was displayed in a place of honour at the Royal Academy. The oil on canvas version of the watercolour featured on 23 Sep- tember, ‘A fakeer at the door of a mosque’, depicting a mendicant in Constantinople, was also shown in the same exhibition (ill. 4). ‘John Frederick Lewis’s reputation as a painter of “Oriental” life had been built on the technical virtuosity of his watercolours, and, although market pressures had influenced his switch to oil for his exhibition pictures it became his practice to make two almost identical versions of his compositions in the two different media’. The oil painting accompanying this watercolour disappeared from public view shortly after its exhibition and remains untraced to this day. (Briony Llewellyn, Charles Newton) 1 Eugène Louis Boudin (1824–1898). Le Havre, Bassin de la Barre. Oil on panel. 31.8 × 40.6 cm. Estimate: CHF 120 000/160 000 2 Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (1803–1862). Farmer at the edge of a forest during an approaching storm. Oil on canvas. 70.5 × 84.5 cm. Estimate: CHF 50 000/70 000 3 Peder Mørk Mønsted (1859–1941). River landscape. Oil on canvas. 70.3 × 101 cm. Estimate: CHF 40 000/60 000 4 John Frederick Lewis (1805–1876). A fakeer at the door of a mosque – Constantinople. 1863. Water- colour over pencil on paper. 31.7 × 26.5 cm. Estimate: 40 000/60 000 3 Lewis’s journey to theOrient 4 FOR FURTHER INFORMATION OLD MASTER DRAWINGS Franz-Carl Diegelmann diegelmann@kollerauctions.com ONLINE CATALOGUE www.kollerauctions.com FOR FURTHER INFORMATION 19 TH CENTURY PAINTINGS Karoline Weser weser@kollerauctions.com ONLINE CATALOGUE www.kollerauctions.com