790 - Wilhelm Streckfuss, The Abendberg at Questenberg, Harz landscape in watercolour, 1881

Wilhelm Streckfuss, The Abendberg at Questenberg, Harz landscape in watercolour, 1881 (1817 Merseburg – 1896 Berlin), watercolour/cardboard, inscribed 'W. Streckfuss Nachlass' lower right. On the reverse inscribed in pencil 'Der Abendberg in Questenberg 1881/10' together with a typewritten label giving the artist's dates, his career and the technique. Above a green meadow set with groups of trees and fruit trees rises a sunlit mountain flank in tones of pink, ochre and violet, its ridge falling from right to left; on the crest of the foreground hill two resting figures and pecking hens, in front of them a broken earth bank with red-brown rock. The sky lightly clouded in white and pale blue. Age-appropriate good condition, stained. Image 26 x 39.5 cm (HxW), mount, behind glass, framed, frame bumped, overall 49.5 x 59 cm (HxW). Wilhelm Streckfuss was a son of the writer and Dante translator Karl Streckfuss. From 1832 he studied at the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin, among others in the drawing class of Friedrich Wilhelm Herbig, and from 1836 to 1839 at the Dusseldorf Academy under Carl Sohn; in 1842/43 he worked in the studio of Paul Delaroche in Paris and in 1843/44 stayed in Rome and southern Italy. From 1838 to 1892 he exhibited regularly at the Berlin Academy exhibitions. In 1858 he published a textbook on perspective, in 1868 he received the title of professor and taught perspective at the drawing school of the Association of Berlin Women Artists; in 1894 he was awarded the Order of the Red Eagle. Questenberg in the southern Harz, today part of the municipality of Suedharz in the district of Mansfeld-Suedharz, is known for its castle ruin and its annual Questenfest.