926 - Fritz Laube, roe deer and roebuck on a woodland meadow, oil on canvas, Harz animal painting

Fritz Laube, roe deer and roebuck on a woodland meadow, oil on canvas, Harz animal painting (1914 Berlin – 1993 Bad Harzburg), oil on canvas, signed 'F. Laube' lower right. A roe deer and a roebuck stand on a summer woodland meadow with yellow flowering dandelions and tall grasses: the front animal in profile to the left, its head turned towards the viewer, behind it the second animal. The background is formed by dense white flowering shrubs, a young spruce and tall, lightly foliaged poplars; above them a pale blue sky with white clouds. The meadow is laid out in short brushstrokes set against one another in greens, yellows and ochres. Good condition. Image 60 x 50 cm (HxW), framed in a gilt-coloured ornamental frame with rocaille decoration, frame width 6.5 cm Fritz Laube studied in Berlin under F. Spiegel, P. Thol and W. Tank and settled in Vienenburg in the Harz in 1950. Besides his panel paintings he created numerous dioramas for the natural history department of the Lower Saxony State Museum, for the East Prussian State Museum in Lüneburg and for the hunting lodge at Springe; he counts among the important representatives of animal painting of the 20th c. The work for dioramas shaped his pictorial approach: animal and habitat are treated with equal precision, and the deer does not stand in front of a backdrop but within a botanically coherent setting.