1355 - Eduard von Grützner

Eduard von Grützner Two Monks at Their Meal Oil on canvas. 60 x 50 cm. Signed and dated lower left: E. v. Grützner / 1917. Provenance Kölnischer Kunstverein (stamp on the reverse). - Coll. Haber. - Hugo Helbing, Munich, 27 March 1926, lot 30. - Private collection in southern Germany. - Acquired in the 1960s and passed down to the current owners. Literature László Balogh: Eduard von Grützner 1846-1925, Munich 1991, p. 198, no. 318, illustrated. Eduard von Grützner, the son of a Silesian farmer, was raised to the nobility in 1916 as a successful painter in Munich. He specialized early on in depicting monastic life in wine cellars, kitchens and beer halls. This also outlines the main feature of his painting: Grützner is not concerned with the religious asceticism and penance of monastic life, but with bodily well-being, with the earthly and thoroughly human enjoyment of wine, beer, sausage or bread, among monks, or indeed especially among monks. The tenor of his works is anecdotal and humorous, and his popularity is accordingly comparable to that of Franz Defregger. What is particularly beautiful about this painting, dating from the period of Grützner's professorship at the Munich Academy, is the refined palette from ochre to dark brown, enlivened by the blue in the monks' habits.