Lot 1140 | Calves in Sunlight

ZÜGEL, HEINRICH VON
1850 Murrhardt - 1941 Munich

Title: Calves in Sunlight.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Measurement: 60 x 80cm.
Notation: Signed and dated lower right: H.v. Zügel 914.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.
Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

Along with Lovis Corinth, Max Liebermann and Max Slevogt, Heinrich von Zügel is one of the most important German Impressionists. Born in Murrhardt in 1850, he was trained as an animal and genre painter by Heinrich von Rustige and Bernhard von Neher from 1869. Two years later he went to Munich to study under Anton Braith. In the course of his career Heinrich von Zügel tended more and more towards Impressionism. He particularly mastered the play between light and shadow, which brings his works to life.
The present painting shows three cows in front of a feeding trough. The light runs kaleidoscopically through the entire painting, so that the cows not only seem to move despite the broad application of paint, but the impression is also created of hearing the rustling of the leaves in the wind.
Von Zügel's paintings are always fascinating, despite their simple motifs of native animals. In 1893 he received a small gold medal at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition and was appointed professor at the Munich Art Academy only two years later. Heinrich von Zügel died in Munich in 1941 at the age of 90.