Johann Sperl

Johann Sperl (1840 Buch near Fürth - 1914 Bad Aibling) - Girl at the fence, looking at a flower. Oil on canvas. 41.9 x 29 cm. Signed and inscribed "München" lower right. Framed. Moritz 155. In 1882, Sperl moved to Bad Aibling with his painter friend Wilhelm Leibl. It was a transitional period for Sperl, during which he moved further and further away from the figurative peasant genre in order to engage more intensively with the landscape. Here he depicts a young farmer's wife in the garden, surrounded by the dense tangle of dog roses. She has picked one of them and is looking at it with her head bowed. On the one hand, the depiction is reminiscent of the medieval type of picture of the garden of paradise and, on the other, of Flemish portraits of the 17th century, in which the figures are framed by lush garlands of flowers and thus somewhat removed from reality. Literature: Eugen Diem, Josef Sperl. Ein Meister aus dem Leiblkreis, Munich 1955, cat. no. 170, fig. 38; Werner Moritz, J. Sperl. 1840-1914, Rosenheim 1990, p. 155, cat. no. 155, with illus. Provenance: Galerie Neupert, Zurich, with the label on the stretcher (no. 5253, Sperl, Munich, "Frau im Garten"); Georg Schäfer Collection, Schweinfurt (inv. no. 303), on the stretcher with the label; Private collection, Southern Germany. Taxation: differential taxation (VAT: Margin Scheme)