Lot 1205 | Marksburg in Spring

WILLE, FRITZ VON
1860 Weimar - 1941 Düsseldorf


Title: Marksburg in Spring.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Mounting: Relined.
Measurement: 191 x 170cm.
Notation: Signed and dated Bottom right: Fritz von Wille / 97.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.
Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

At VAN HAM, where a large number of landscape descriptions by Fritz von Wille have been offered and sold over the years, the artist is a permanent fixture in the auction business. With his rugged rock formations, colourful flower meadows, deep maars and wide vistas, he made a name for himself far beyond the borders of the Eifel and is today considered probably the most famous Eifel painter.
As the son of artist parents - his father was the landscape and genre painter August von Wille (1828-1887), his mother the animal painter Clara von Wille (née von Böttcher, 1837-1883) - he was educated at the Düsseldorf Academy and from the late 19th century always attracted the attention of art collectors. From the late 19th century onwards, he constantly attracted the attention of art collectors, renowned museums and even Kaiser Wilhelm II. He exhibited at international exhibitions and, on his numerous journeys (to Italy and Scandinavia, among other places), he constantly studied the different qualities of nature. He then found his own style from the mid-1890s onwards during his extensive walks through the Eifel. The atmospheric landscape, devoid of people, never let him go and became the main motif of his works.
A highlight of this auction and a major work in Fritz von Wille's oeuvre is the large-format painting "Marksburg in Spring" (Lot 1205). Painted in 1897, the painting captivates with its round-arch format and intense colours, which are once again shown in all their splendour after a restoration arranged by VAN HAM. On display is part of Marksburg Castle on the Middle Rhine, the only medieval hilltop castle in the region that has never been destroyed and part of the UNESCO World Heritage Upper Middle Rhine Valley. The monument with 800 years of history is depicted with a view of the castle bailiff's tower on a spring-like day with blossoming trees. A lady with a dog walking down the staircase is skilfully staged in front of the imposing building and the blossoms of the trees blowing in the wind, so that it almost seems as if one can perceive the scent of the blossoms through the canvas.
The great attention to detail as well as the fascination with the region and Willes' adopted home - the artist acquired Kerpen Castle in 1911 - can also be found in the three other works that VAN HAM is able to offer in this auction. Lots 1206, 1207 and 1208 take us back to the artist's typical sparsely populated, wide landscapes in landscape format. They are characterised by their focal colourfulness as well as the artist's elaboration of the differences between the geographically so close landscapes. Thus he takes us to a magnificent, flowering heath landscape over which the sun is just making its way through the clouds (lot 1206), to a gentle meadow slope lightly overgrown with trees on the Spichernberg near Saarbrücken (lot 1208) and to the Totenmaar with the Weinfeld chapel (lot 1207).
Fritz von Wille's very own characteristic style skilfully combines elements of late Romanticism, Realism and Impressionism and still bears witness today to the beauty of the varied local landscapes.