803 - G. Winkelmann, belling stag above a wide valley at sunset, animal piece, dated 1894

G. Winkelmann, belling stag above a wide valley at sunset, animal piece, dated 1894 Oil/canvas, signed 'G. Winkelmann' and dated 1894 lower left. On a rocky knoll set with fern and heather at the left edge of the picture stands a dark red stag with high antlers, belling with open mouth; behind him a hind and further red deer in the scrub. To the right opens a wide valley lying in haze, in which a second stag and several hinds stand. In the background tiered wooded ranges of hills, above them an evening sky in yellow, orange and blue with two birds. Age-appropriate condition, craquelure, retouching, small losses of paint. Image 40 x 60 cm (HxW). Framed in a gilt decorative frame with ornamental moulding, frame bumped, frame width 8.5 cm. The rut in late autumn was the preferred subject of 19th century wildlife painting: the belling of the stag could be staged as an expression of strength and wilderness and linked the animal study with the mood landscape. Such pictures were produced in large numbers in the circle of the Dusseldorf animal painters around Carl Friedrich Deiker and Christian Kroener and hung in hunting rooms and studies, in forester's houses and inns. The combination of precise drawing of the game in the foreground with a widely opened distant view made it possible to unite animal piece and landscape in a single format, and oleographs kept the genre popular well into the 20th century.