813 - Hermann Ritzau, Harz view, house by a river before a wooded rocky slope, Düsseldorf School

Hermann Ritzau, Harz view, house by a river before a wooded rocky slope, Düsseldorf School (1866 Wolsdorf – 1922 Helmstedt), watercolour/paper, signed lower left "H. Ritzau", Harz view, in the foreground a grassy bank with tall grasses, on the right a river with stones in the water, in the middle ground a small house with red-brown gabled roof among bushes, behind it a wooded mountain with light rock faces, on the right tall deciduous trees on the bank, condition commensurate with age, foxed, image 28.5x22.5 cm (HxW), glazed, framed, frame width 1.5 cm. The landscape painter Hermann Ritzau (1866 to 1922) was born in Wolsdorf and grew up there by the Tekenberg. He was trained at the Weimar art school and from 1884 to 1893 at the Düsseldorf Academy, where Eugen Dücker was his teacher; art history counts him among the Düsseldorf School. His study trips took him to the Harz, the Lüneburg Heath and Rügen. Later he lived in Helmstedt and taught drawing at the Gymnasium Julianum. His Harz motifs include views of the Steinerne Renne, the Achtermannshöhe and the pond landscape in Ilsenburg.