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Description

Lyonel Feininger

Lyonel Feininger Locomotive with tender and two passenger carriages. Comes with: Four construction drawings 1913/1914 Four-part wooden sculpture, painted in color by the artist. 6.5 x 61.8 x 3.5 cm. With 4 construction drawings in pen and ink, pencil and watercolor on laid paper. From 6.3 x 26 cm to 28 x 63.5 cm. - Sculpture: With insignificant traces of use, one chimney added later. Drawings: Well preserved, one drawing with traces of use and irregularly cut. With a photo-certificate by Achim Moeller, New York, Managing Director of the Lyonel Feininger Project LLC, New York, dated April 10, 2024 and March 6, 2024. The sculpture is registered under no. 1917-04-10-24. The drawings are registered under Nos. 1907-03-06-24 to 1910-03-06-24. Provenance Sculpture: Private collection; Christie's New York, February 12, 1987, lot 74; Collection Dr. Royal E.S. and Martha Philips Haves, Waterbury/Connecticut; Christie's New York, November 5, 1991, lot 172; Moeller Fine Art, New York; Private collection New York Drawings: Alois Schardt, Los Angeles; private collection; Moeller Fine Art, New York; private collection, New York Exhibitions: Sculpture Sculpture: Essen 1997/1998 (Museum Folkwang), Die Maler und ihre Skulpturen: Von Degas bis Gerhard Richter, p. 154 with color illus.; Berlin 2013 (Moeller Fine Art), Lyonel und T. Lux Feininger; Berlin 2013 (Moeller Fine Art), Lyonel Feininger: Drawn from Nature, Carved in Wood / T. Lux Feininger: Sixty Years of Painting; 2 drawings additionally: Madrid 2017 (Fundación Juan March), Lyonel Feininger, cat. No. 162, p. 133 with color illustrations, p. 400 Drawings: Berlin 2013 (Moeller Fine Art), Lyonel and T. Lux Feininger; Berlin 2013 (Moeller Fine Art), Lyonel Feininger: Drawn from Nature, Carved in Wood / T. Lux Feininger: Sixty Years of Painting; 2 additional drawings: Madrid 2017 (Fundación Juan March), Lyonel Feininger, cat. No. 162, p. 133 with color illustrations, p. 400 With three model locomotives, a model railroad and six accompanying construction drawings, an ensemble of works by Lyonel Feininger that is extremely rare in the art trade is being offered for sale. These are the few surviving prototypes of wooden trains built around 1913, which the Munich toy manufacturer Otto Löwenstein was commissioned to produce on Feininger's behalf. Although Feininger had already applied for a patent for his "Block Railway", production had been prepared and even the cardboard packaging had been designed, industrial production had to be halted because the First World War broke out in August 1914. Feininger had been fascinated by railroads and the dynamics associated with them since childhood. In his early years in New York, he experienced the frenzy of Grand Central Station, which opened in the year of his birth, the construction of the elevated railroad over Second Avenue and the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. As the epitome of modern engineering achievements, however, he was particularly enthusiastic about the large steam locomotives: "I often stood," he wrote in an autobiographical account, "on one of the long pedestrian bridges on Fourth Avenue that lead over the tracks of the New York Central Railway and watched the trains arrive and depart." (quoted from Martin Faass, Eine Phantasiewelt parallel zur Kunst Lyonel Feiningers Spielzeug, in: Jahrbuch des Museums für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, vol. 20, 2001, p. 116). With a great interest in all things technical, Feininger developed an enthusiasm for old-fashioned steam locomotives while still in the USA, which he repeatedly drew, sometimes painted and even built himself out of wood. After carving houses, churches, city gates and figures for his three sons, he developed prototypes for model trains for the toy industry around 1913. Even before his artistic breakthrough, Feininger hoped this would provide him with another source of income. As Martin Faass explains, he invented the "block train", a wooden train without wheels or tracks, which was simply pulled across the floor with its smooth underside. Beforehand, he took great pleasure in drawing detailed construction drawings of historical locomotives with their tenders and passenger carriages. He used the "Adler" built by Robert Stephenson in England and the American "Pacific" as models. He had the components for the prototypes made by a carpenter friend; he assembled the parts himself and painted them. (cf. Faass, ibid., p. 116). These were always historical railroads, because unlike the Futurists, Feininger's affinity for technology did not go hand in hand with a belief in progress. And yet he proved to be an expert in the subject matter, displaying the greatest technical precision in his design drawings, such as that of the "American passenger D-carriage "1915". As he wrote on May 26, 19

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Lyonel Feininger

Estimate 35 000 - 40 000 EUR
Starting price 26 250 EUR

* Not including buyer’s premium.
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Sale fees: 34.51 %
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For sale on Tuesday 04 Jun : 18:00 (CEST)
cologne, Germany
Lempertz
+49221925729
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