112 - M. SAVIGNY (1831-1905), Vineyard terraces on the Isenach, 1856, Pencil

M. SAVIGNY (1831-1905), Vineyard terraces on the Isenach, 1856, Pencil Marie von Savigny (1831 Boitzenburg - 1905 ): Fairytale view of the vineyard terraces on the Isenach below the ruins of Limburg Abbey, 1856, Pencil Technique: Pencil on Paper, mounted on Paper Inscription: Inscribed and dated "Kloster Limburg d. 18 October 56" in pencil lower left Date: 1856 Description: Freda Sophie Karoline Marie von Savigny, née Countess von Arnim (1831 Boitzenburg - 1905) is known to us as the wife of the Prussian envoy and co-founder of the Centre Party, Karl Friedrich von Savigny (1814-1875). As such, she accompanied her husband on diplomatic trips and had to take on numerous representative duties and attend social events herself. In her surviving letters from the family's private collection, we can read about the heavy burden placed on the young woman, who also raised their three children. Her interest in culture was expressed in her frequent visits to the theater and the employment of a drawing teacher, an unknown Düsseldorf painter. The romantic view of natural landscapes with only cautious intervention by modern settlements reveals the influence of the Düsseldorf school of painting on Marie von Savigny in the mid-19th century. Her landscapes, which range from Heligoland to the Rhine Valley, the Ahr Valley, Baden and Switzerland to northern Italy, are characterized by picturesque vistas and the emphasis on striking natural formations and only rarely feature figures. The special effect of her watercolors is created by the luminous colors she creates through the preferred use of blue and green tones as well as skilful light and dark effects in the atmosphere. She is even able to lend her monochrome watercolors an inner luminosity. In her drawings, she achieves this by deliberately blurring dark areas and emphasizing light areas in white. Despite the many prestigious duties that Marie von Savigny had to fulfil as the wife of diplomat Karl Friedrich von Savigny and the heavy burden of frequent travel and relocation, she had the unusual opportunity for her time as an artist to discover distant regions and capture them in pictures. Her artistic legacy contains an unrivaled variety of landscapes. Browse through our selection and be enchanted by Marie von Savigny's landscape paintings. Markus Raasch (ed.): Nobility, Catholicism, Myth. Neue Perspektiven auf die Adelsgeschichte der Moderne (Elitenwandel in der Moderne, 15), Munich 2014, p. 120ff. The Limburg an der Haardt monastery is considered one of the most important surviving buildings from the early Salian period. The church, which is now only preserved in ruins, is one of the earliest Romanesque buildings on German soil that was consistently oriented towards the "bound system" of the ground plan. The ruins are enthroned above the Isenach valley in the picturesque vineyards above the small village of Hausen. The depiction of a figure in the foreground is rare in Savigny's work. The seated woman puts her finger to her lips and seems to be inviting both the artist and the viewer to be quiet or to let them in on a secret. Keywords: 19th century, Romanticism, Landscape, Germany, Size: Paper: 21,9 cm x 29,2 cm (8,6 x 11,5 in) Condition: Rather good condition. The sheet is discolored due to age and shows clear stains. Some areas of white wash(?) can be seen.