Lot 709 | Eugen Bracht | "Sautrifft"

BRACHT, EUGEN
1842 Morges - 1921 Darmstadt

Title: "Sautrifft".
Heath landscape with mighty oak tree under dark thunderclouds.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Measurement: 93 x 161cm.
Notation: Signed lower left: Eugen Bracht.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.
Literature:
cf.: M. Osborn: Eugen Bracht, Bielefeld/Leipzig 1909, p. 92 mit ill.

Provenance:
Private ownership, Argentina.

The landscape painter Eugen Bracht was born in Morges, Switzerland, in 1842 and grew up in Darmstadt. He received painting and drawing lessons at an early age and studied in Karlsruhe and Dusseldorf. Appointed professor of landscape painting at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin in 1883, Bracht followed the call to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden in 1902. Throughout his life, he remained connected to his hometown of Darmstadt in his landscape motifs. An honorary membership in the "Freie Vereinigung Darmstädter Künstler" prompted Bracht to participate in their exhibitions, in which he always showed native motifs. So also the present painting, which is based on a study from the Kranichsteiner Park in Darmstadt. The turn to open-air painting and the Impressionist influences on Bracht's oeuvre became increasingly clear during his time in Dresden and ultimately led to his artistic breakthrough.

The art historian Manfred Großkinsky writes us about this painting that Eugen Bracht painted the subject - spread over almost twenty years - in four different versions. This heath landscape with the mighty oak trees is known through the illustration of the first and largest version in the old monograph by Max Osborn (1909); the one here dates to 1903. Großkinsky identifies the present painting as the version sold to South America.
Bracht's brother Albrecht was living in Buenos Aires at the time and acted as a contact for the collectors there. In March 1904, the large canvas was sold to a private collector there; after that, the trace was lost until it was now brought to us from a private Argentine estate.

We thank Manfred Großkinsky, Karlsruhe, who confirmed the attribution on the basis of a high-resolution digital photograph, for his kind support.