Wilhelm Busch
Wilhelm Busch (1832 Wiedensahl - Mechtshausen 1908) - Bust portrait of a peasant boy.
Oil on card. 22.5 x 19.5 cm. With the incised monogram lower right. Framed.
Gmelin 172.
Even though Busch remained childless as a bachelor, he occasionally looked after the grandchildren of his uncle, the pastor Georg Kleine from Lüthorst. From the 1850s onwards, rural life became the focus of his attention and he produced a series of portraits of children, often from the rural milieu. Here he shows a small boy as a half-length figure, set in a tall oval, strictly in profile up to the elbow. The boy wears his straw-blonde hair parted and looks to the side with a skeptical frown - he probably no longer wants to keep still and would much rather romp with his comrades. Gmelin refers to a preliminary drawing in Otto Nöldeke's sketchbook, facsimile, Munich 1924 (p. 39), which shows the same model.
Literature:
Hans Georg Gmelin, Wilhelm Busch als Maler, Berlin 1980, p. 235, cat. no. 172, with illus.
Provenance:
From the estate of Helene Haase, née Kleine (niece of the artist), since then in family possession;
Karl & Faber, Munich, auction 82, 30.11.1962, lot 569, with illus;
Georg Schäfer Collection, Schweinfurt (inv. no. 4426), with the label on the reverse, acquired in the above auction;
Private collection, Southern Germany.
Taxation: differential taxation (VAT: Margin Scheme)
