Lot 231 | Felix Schlesinger | Family at the Devotion

SCHLESINGER, FELIX
Hamburg 1833 - 1910

Title: Family at the Devotion.
Technique: Oil on wood.
Measurement: 65 x 46cm.
Notation: Signed lower left: F. Schlesinger.
Frame: Framed.

Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

This small family scene, which takes place in a church interior between the confessional, the offertory and the altar, is filled with solemn seriousness. Three generations are gathered here for devotion, grandparents, daughter and grandchild, all dressed in their Sunday best. Perhaps the girl is about to receive her First Communion. Like her grandmother, she holds a rosary between her small hands, which she folds attentively to pray to "dear God". The adults all hold a Bible in their hands, the contents of which the child will soon learn to read herself. Tentative curiosity is expressed in her gaze and the first step forward has already been taken, with the mother's gentle support. The young woman's concern for the child and the anxious expectation of an uncertain future are written all over her face. Humble and pious, she kneels before God. Not so the grandmother, who gently, lovingly and full of trust in God turns her eyes to the altar. Standing upright in the background, she radiates security and maternal serenity and is the real support of the family. The circle is completed by the grandfather, who is the only one who has taken a seat in the pew and who, as a veritable marginal figure, is no longer entirely in the picture. In a figurative sense, he is already on the threshold of the end of life as a transcendent figure. His head is turned towards the women, but his tired gaze goes nowhere. The fact that the freshly polished buttons on his red doublet can no longer be fastened is of little concern to him. He has completed his work in this world, is ready for his dismissal, while his granddaughter next to him is just getting ready to receive the holy sacraments.

Felix Schlesinger, who studied at the Düsseldorf Academy, in Antwerp and in Paris and later settled in Munich, has made a name for himself especially for his sensitive depiction of children. He knows how to portray rural life in its modest grandeur and the childlike world in its amiable smallness with great vividness. With the present work he has succeeded in creating a generational picture that bears witness to his fine powers of observation: each face expresses a different emotion. The painter also pays great attention to the colouring and treatment of the fabrics, whose tactile qualities he knows how to express with impressive naturalism.