829 - Probably after Alexander Koester, duck pond, white ducks on choppy water with reeds, animal painting

Probably after Alexander Koester, duck pond, white ducks on choppy water with reeds, animal painting Oil/canvas, unsigned, probably after Alexander Koester, duck pond, group of white ducks with orange bills on blue, choppy water, on the left a duck swimming to the right, on the right a group with lowered and raised heads and ruffled plumage, reeds in the foreground and middle ground, behind a green bank with bushes and red roofs, light sky, good condition commensurate with age, slightly soiled and rubbed, image 68.5x100 cm (HxW), framed, frame with relief band, frame chipped, frame width 5.5 cm Alexander Koester (1864 Neustadt, today Bergneustadt – 1932 Munich) studied from 1885 at the Karlsruhe Academy under Karl Hoff and Claus Meyer and settled in Klausen in South Tyrol in 1896. After he first exhibited duck pictures in landscape settings in Berlin in 1899, white ducks on moving water became his principal subject and earned him the nickname Enten-Koester (duck Koester); in 1904 he received a gold medal at the St. Louis World's Fair for a duck painting. His manner developed from the detailed realism of the 1890s to a looser, impressionist-influenced handling of paint; in 1915 he moved to Diessen am Ammersee, and his estate is held in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich. Duck pictures in his wake take up the motif and composition of Koester's duck ponds: a group of white ducks on rippled water before reeds and a bank.