(1869 Zawodzie - Vienna 1939). Flight to Egypt (The Mountain Lake). Etchings, 1897. 22.2 x 29.5 cm, sheet 33 x 49 cm. - Hofstaetter Rw 6. - Some foxing, le. Inscribed in pencil verso. Illustrated 1898 in Jugend p. 694. Outstanding deep black impression from the artist's early graphic work. D

Albert Venus (1842 Dresden - 1871 ibid.): Shepherd family on their way home at the edge of the forest near Brunnen, 19th century, Pencil Technique: Pencil on Paper Inscription: Lower right signed: "A. Venus". Lower right dated: "29. April". Date: 19th century Description: In the present sheet, Albert Venus provides a tunnel-like view of the Italian hills, which he would repeatedly make the subject of his drawings and watercolours on his first trip to Italy in 1866. Venus was particularly fascinated by the famous oak forest near Olevano, the "Serpentara", as he explored the Italian landscape in the footsteps of his teacher Ludwig Richter. The tree-lined path on our sheet leading out into the open may also be part of this "sacred grove" of German artists in Italy. Venus stayed here, particularly towards the end of September 1866, together with his artist friends Victor Paul Mohn and Carl Wilhelm Müller.1 In January 1869 he was able to travel to Italy for a second time, made possible by the Great Saxon State Scholarship.2 However, our sheet appears to date from the time of his first journey, as after 1866 Venus began to turn away more and more from the dominance of the line, of which the present work still bears witness. Painterly colouring, light effects, free formal language; these became the elements of an art to which Venus, in admiration of the Düsseldorf School, began to turn. When he met Venus again in Italy in 1869, Mohn wrote in his diary: "The devil is riding him, his second word is - Achenbach. "3 The viewer's gaze is drawn along by the shepherd driving his herd of goats out of the forest, while next to him his wife, sitting on a donkey, holds the family's small child on her lap. This group, which evokes memories of the Holy Family's flight to Egypt, promises an ideal of rural idyll and suggests a unity of man and nature, which is a recurring theme in Venus' works. Unlike his teacher Richter, he dispenses with irritating moments that disrupt the unity of the family idyll. (af) ---- 1 Cf. the dated watercolours in the Dräger/Stubbe Collection (Heise 2007, p. 350), the Mannheimer Kunsthalle (Fath 1988, ...) and from our catalogue volume XIV "Von romantischen Seelenwelten", Frankfurt 2004, p. 111. 2 Cf. Friedrich 1956, p. 118. 3 Quoted from: ibid. A fine example of these painterly works can be found in Heise 2007, p. 352. Keywords: 19th century, Romanticism, Landscape, Germany, Size: Paper: 10,8 cm x 7,4 cm (4,3 x 2,9 in)