4267 - Heinrich Breling, The Fish Cleaner

Heinrich Breling, The Fish Cleaner In a parlour, two girls (sisters?) are cleaning fish; the seated young woman, holding a bowl, is showing the little girl in the red apron how to clean the fish; in front of them lie two more fish; on the wall is a relief of the Virgin Mary and a small painting; to the left is a chest; slightly impasto genre painting, oil on wooden panel, signed and dated 1893 in the top left-hand corner, minimally restored, gold frame, inner dimensions 27.5 x 21 cm. Artist information: real name Heinrich Christoph Gottlieb Breling, German genre and history painter and etcher (1849, Burgdorf, Hanover district, to 1914, Fischerhude), spent his childhood in Fischerhude from 1854, studied art from 1863 to 1869 on a Royal Hanoverian scholarship at the Hannover Technikum under Carl Oesterley, in 1869 he joined the Prussian Army and took part in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-71; from 1872 he studied at the Munich Academy under Wilhelm von Diez, subsequently working in Munich, and undertook study trips to France, Great Britain and the Netherlands; from 1878 worked for King Ludwig II; in 1883 appointed Royal Professor by Ludwig II and, from 1884, court painter to King Ludwig II of Bavaria; commissioned by Ludwig II to create depictions of Herrenchiemsee and Linderhof Palaces; worked in Munich-Schleißheim from 1885, moved to Hanover in 1892 and made regular stays in Fischerhude near Bremen; co-founder of the Fischerhude artists’ colony; maintained a studio in Bredenau (Ottersberg) near Fischerhude; through the marriage of his daughter Louise, he became the father-in-law of Otto Modersohn; exhibited, amongst other venues, at the Munich Kunstverein, the Munich Glaspalast, art exhibitions in Berlin, Vienna and Düsseldorf; member of the Allgemeine Deutsche Kunstgenossenschaft; source: Thieme-Becker, Saur ‘Bio-Bibliographisches Künstlerlexikon’, AKL, Müller-Singer, Boetticher, Dressler, Bruckmann, *Munich Painters of the 19th/20th Centuries*, Schweers and the internet.