The organist. Watercolor, sig. u. dat. 1909 u.l., 34,5x25 cm (BG) This watercolor depicting the blind organist Karl Köhl (1855-1919) was previously unknown in Anker circles, but a charcoal drawing with an almost identical motif was. Köhl's parents had emigrated from Bergün to Odessa in today's Ukraine, where they became very wealthy as confectioners. When Karl, who had gone blind at an early age, was seven years old, the family moved to Chur. After attending the cantonal school there, Karl took up organ studies at the Stuttgart Conservatory. At the end of the 1870s he returned to Chur and worked for more than 40 years as organist at the Lutheran St. Martin's Church, where he later also founded the church choir. Along the way he was active as an organizer of numerous concerts, as a music teacher and as a composer of choral works, songs and piano pieces. From 1905 he resided in the specially built Art Nouveau villa "Elkana". Albert Anker's later wife Anna Rüefli had served as a nanny for the Köhl family, who were still living in Russia at the time, before their marriage and remained on friendly terms with them afterwards. Albert Anker created several portraits of members of the Köhl family over the years. It seems obvious that the present watercolor shows Karl Köhl at the organ of the late Gothic Martinskirche in Chur. This was the first Protestant church in the canton to be equipped with an organ by Anton Menting of Augsburg after the Reformation in 1613. We would like to thank Matthias Brefin, Ins, for his comments. http://www.dobiaschofsky.com/d106--10026.html