906 - Willy Habl, In the Haseldorf Marsh, Farmhouse on the Village Street, Schleswig-Holstein

Willy Habl, In the Haseldorf Marsh, Farmhouse on the Village Street, Schleswig-Holstein (1888 Egeln to 1964 Hamburg), watercolour over pencil underdrawing on paper, inscribed H at lower right, titled on the reverse. View along a village street towards an eaves-fronted farmhouse with a far-drawn red-brown roof and a brick gable; to the left a green paddock behind a wooden fence with a fieldstone edge, to the right reeds and masonry gate piers, between them tall bare trees before a grey sky. The colouring keyed to grey, green, red-brown and ochre. Good condition commensurate with age, foxed, image 33x46 cm (HxW), mount, overall 47x60 cm (HxW). The Haseldorf Marsh lies in the district of Pinneberg on the lower Elbe and is among the oldest diked marshland landscapes of Schleswig-Holstein; its character is defined by dwelling mounds, thatched houses, drainage ditches and pastures. For Willy Habl, who worked independently in Hamburg from 1931, such motifs lay on his doorstep, and the North German marsh forms, alongside the coast, the core of his late work. After the Second World War the painter fell largely into obscurity; his works are recorded in Thieme-Becker, Vollmer, the Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon and the Neuer Rump. An appealing sheet for admirers of Schleswig-Holstein topographical views.