Ernst Ferdinand Oehme Lot n° 51

Ernst Ferdinand Oehme, Mill in the Plauen Ground Oil on canvas. (1830). 67,5 x 92,5 cm. Monogrammed and dated "1830" lower left. The various grounds - narrow and deeply cut valleys with rushing streams and waterfalls - in the vicinity of Dresden offered the painter atmospheric images of wild romantic character full of scenic changes - "an endless alternation of attractive and eye-catching groups and shapes of trees" and the "rock masses threatening to overthrow, the whimsical curvatures of the stream that waters the valley", Johann Jakob Brückner noted in 1803 in his "Pitoreskische[n] Reisen durch Sachsen". In 1830, Ernst Ferdinand Oehme made one of these grounds, the Plauenschen Grund with the fulling mill standing on the banks of the Weißeritz, the subject of his painting, in which observation of nature and dramatic staging are combined. Wild and torrential, the stream makes its way over rocks and stones through the valley, its roaring, white foaming spray is answered by a dark sky piled up in dramatic clouds, through which the last rays of the gentle evening sun lay on the mill. This is still Romantic heritage, and the accurate depiction of the mill and its adjacent buildings is also part of it, but the freshness and painterly freedom with which Oehme devotes himself to observing the rushing stream and the growth of vegetation on the adjacent banks breathes the spirit of direct observation of nature, of a painterly realism that he had learned from his teacher Johan Clausen Dahl. As with the latter, water, clouds and light are the actual protagonists of Oehme's painting, and Oehme certainly knew Dahl's "Mühle im Liebethaler Grund" (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Neue Meister, Inv.-No. 2206 O), in which he helped Ruisdael's model to blossom again with the rushing brook. Together with his friend August Heinrich, Oehme had been among the first to apply to study with the Norwegian in 1819, shortly after his arrival in Dresden. Oehme became close friends with Dahl, took part in his walks in the surroundings of Dresden, copied from his oil studies - Dahl's departure for Italy in June 1820, however, prevented a deepening of the student relationship. At the end of 1821, when Dahl returned to Dresden from Italy, Oehme in turn had left for Italy, equipped with a scholarship of several years from the Wettin crown prince and later king Friedrich August II, who had acquired Oehme's first work "Cathedral in Winter" (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Neue Meister, Inv.-No. 2219 B) at the academy's annual exhibition in 1821. From then on, the contact between the two peers did not break off; their intimate relationship is testified not only by the letters that the crown prince wrote to Oehme in Rome, but also by his purchase of all seven of Oehme's paintings created in Rome. Oehme's paintings, painted after his return to Dresden, were mostly acquired by the Crown Prince until the 1830s, who had moved into a new villa on the slopes of the Elbe in Dresden-Wachwitz in 1825, in whose rooms he wished to surround himself with a gallery of "patriotic landscapes". For this purpose, he had commissioned paintings from Oehme and Johann Theodor Goldstein, who began in 1825 with a view of Kriebstein Castle. Oehme also provided numerous paintings, including views from Switzerland and Italy, from where he had just returned. The motifs of the Saxon landscapes have not been handed down in detail, but views of the castles in Scharfenberg and Colditz or the castles in Hohnstein and Stolpen may have been as much a part of it as a view of Meissen. Our "Mühle im Plauenschen Grund" would also fit well into such a picture program, and it is also probable that it belonged to the furnishings of the villa in Wachwitz, because the painting had been in the possession of the Wettins uninterruptedly since its creation until a few years ago. Dr. Peter Prange We would like to thank Claudia Maria Müller, Dresden, for her research on the provenance. Literature: Hans Joachim Neidhardt/Winfried Werner: Mühle im Plauenschen Grund - ein wiederentdecktes Gemälde von Ernst Ferdinand Oehme (1797-1855), in: Denkmalpflege in Sachsen. Mitteilungen des Landesamtes für Denkmalpflege Sachsen 2009, pp. 49-54. Provenance: probably King Frederick August II of Saxony (1797-1854), Dresden (as a private commission for his villa in Dresden-Wachwitz); King Frederick August III of Saxony (1865-1932), Dresden; owned by the Wettins until shortly after the turn of the millennium; then private property, southern Germany. Taxation: Differentially taxed (VAT: Margin Scheme).