784 - Nikolaus Gumberger, Falkenstein Castle, Harz, veduta, hilltop castle over mixed forest, 19th century

Nikolaus Gumberger, Falkenstein Castle, Harz, veduta, hilltop castle over mixed forest, 19th century (1822 Weixerau – 1898 Rosenheim), oil on panel, signed lower right "N. Gumberger", 19th century, view of Falkenstein Castle above a densely wooded slope, round main tower with surrounding gallery and dark curved cap with lantern, on the left half-timbered buildings with cross gables and chimneys, a light-coloured masonry building with round-arched frieze, in front of it a low annexe, on the far left a small crenellated tower, in the background on the left a blue-green ridge, grey-white cumulus clouds with light blue gaps, in the foreground mixed forest with autumnal reddish-brown foliage, on the right tall conifers, good condition commensurate with age, retouching, image 45x64 cm (HxW), framed, wide gold-coloured decorative frame with frieze of flowers and leaf scrolls, frame bumped, frame width 12 cm Nikolaus Gumberger was born on 6 December 1822 in Weixerau near Eching in the district of Landshut and died on 16 August 1898 in Rosenheim. He was a veduta painter active in Bavaria, from a family who travelled as itinerant landscape painters and later also worked as photographers in Rosenheim. His views of towns include Rosenheim on the Inn, Lake Chiemsee with the Fraueninsel, Salzburg, Berchtesgaden with the Watzmann and Mittenwald, as well as castles such as Rheinstein on the Rhine; the Heimatmuseum Obing holds his view of the village from circa 1870. Falkenstein Castle is a high medieval hilltop castle in the Lower Harz, built between 1120 and 1180 on a rocky ridge above the Selke valley, which could never be conquered. At the castle Eike von Repgow wrote the Sachsenspiegel, the first German law book, after 1220, dedicating it to Hoyer von Falkenstein. From 1437 until the expropriation after the Second World War the castle belonged to the lords von der Asseburg; since 1946 it has housed a museum.