Preraphaelite painter. Nymphs, gods, shallow creatures, dream icons...

Fausta Samaritani

http://www.guidocolucci.net 

web master

No. It is a very complex artistic movement, not only painting, but also book industry, industrial craft, poetry. It start from England and it spreads in France and Italy, inspired to the art that precedes Rafael. This painter is clearly inspired to Perugino.

Fausta Samaritani

http://www.guidocolucci.net 

web master

In my opinion this painting is of the same period as the attached. This was originally sold at Bonhams and fetched a surprisingly large amount considering its condition. To me both paintings seem to come from the middle of the first half of the 19c. The Bonhams painting sets a standard which gives a perspective to the painting in this blog. I think in date both paintings predate the conscious pre-raphaelite movement and are more associated with Edward Frost - Etty and their generation the 1820/30s. The early 19C is a difficult period as most painters from this time seem in limbo -out of fashion - politically incorrect and an embarrassment. There are no serious studies of Etty just some biographies - hardly anything of Edward Frost. I suppose J Constable and JMW Turner escape oblivion because their subject matter is politically neutral. All these painters were talented. Turner some say a genius But a collection of Turners without an Etty, Frost or Lawrence to contrast becomes ponderous. The RA was full of painters in this period and yet we only have a fragmentary awarness of them.

Dear Ercole do you perhaps know who the artist is?

I am currently in possesion of this amazing work in South Africa, dont ask me how it got here.

Some more photos

Another close up, visible brush work

The history of the art is not a right line, it doesn´t make jumps, but it is a sinuous line. The history of the art goes on, and returns. Connections with artists of other epochs. Nazerene wanted to interpret the true life of Jesus.

Our painting doesn´t have anything of religious instead. Three girls (the same face) offer the wheats of corn to swans. A secular subject, inhaled perhaps to the myth of Leda and the swan.

For me, this painting is more neighbor to the painters Simbolists that to Preraphaelites.

There is not the taste of the particular one (leaves, flowers, colors, curly to the wind etc.) what it characterizes the Preraphaelites. It seems a painting of school. I don´t see the hand of a Maestro.

The plant of agave grows in the countries of the Mediterranean one. The vase that contains the plant seems me an Italian object. But it is a hypothesis...

Also the building and the garden seem Italian. I advise to fix the painting above a support. The loss of color is due to the fact that the painting has been rolled up.

Fausta Samaritani

http://www.guidocolucci.net 

web master

It made me think - in a rather vague and ignorant way- of the German Nazerene movement (a kind of early nineteenth predecessor of preraphaelism).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazarene_movement 

What country was this found in?

This painting was famous in the 19th century and now tragically so sinked into oblivion that I was unable to find some reproduction or photo on the net.

The style says that It is certainly a copy (to much recent canvas) after the ´´Schwäne fütternde Mädchen´´ (women feeding swans) by August Ferdinand Hopfgarten, a painting from 1839/1840, at the time in the collection of the king of Prussia.

There was at least three lithographs or engravings after this painting :

1/Carl Wildt- 2/E.Meyer (I don´t know if it is by Eduard or Ernst. Both were engravers)- 3/Jean-François Victor Dollet, 1840, published by Desmaisons Cabasson. Impossible too to find a reproduction of these works.

I let you drive your own search with ´´August Ferdinand Hopfgarten´´ and ´´Schwäne fütternde Mädchen´´ and all combination you could imagine. Don´t forget Google books! A site will add that they are three, another that they are dressed in Renaissance clothes...

Start :

http://de.enc.tfode.com/August_Ferdinand_Hopfgarten 

(or wikipedia)

__________________________

Chinese proverb : Gossip doesn´t cook the rice

Thank you saintluc

Please tell me what do you mean by ´´to much canvas´´

Hi Saintluc

I will take a picture of the back for you to look at.

To me it looks like a woven cloth or a type of hesian.

Should i consider getting somebody to restore it?

Saintluc wrote ´´to much recent canvas´´ meaning that the canvas is too recent/not old enough to be from the time of the original painting.



Regards,

Vietato



____________________

e-store: Vietato´s Gallery 


I am webmaster on this: Art Talk - Foredrag om kunst  (in Danish - about art lectures)

The canvas, according to my opinion, it is too much new to be 170 years old around. The lines of the face of the girls are synthetic, deprived of depth, more modern in comparison to the faces painted by August Ferdinand Hopfgarten, a painter that has frequented regular courses of Academy. The painting makes to think to a copy, beginning 20 sec.

Of all the celebrated paintings were made copies. Nevertheless, since it seems that the original one has gone lost, this increases the value of the copy.

If we have spoken so much of this painting, it is because it has a lot of charm. It is an academic painting, with sense of the proportions, but the Author also possesses invention and dreams the Italian Teachers.

The painting should be restored with integration of the lacking parts. It needs to choose a good renovator: non easy thing.

Fausta Samaritani

http://www.repubblicaletteraria.it 

web master

some pictures of the canvas

some more pictures, my heart is telling me this work is by a well known artist.

this photo is the bottom of the one maidens dress.
It almost looks like a word?

close up of swans wings

I have taken the painting to the Metropolitan museum and it was examined by an expert Anthony Keogh.

He said it is certainly from the early 19th century.

It is not a print or oliograph.

The photos i have taken do not do this painting justice as there is an enourmous build up of grime and dirt which make the painting look flat.

He removed the varnish on a very small area and the colour and depth is absolutely stunning.

There seems to be repeated assertions that this work is attributable to the PRB. To me this painting seems unconscious of the PRB or the PRS. Who are these experts?

Ercole seems to support the Hopfgarten connection suggested by Saintluc. The Nazerene/Hopfgarten connection seems compelling as 3 girls dressed in renaissance costume feeding 2 swans makes a positive match in the description of the missing Hopgarten painting. The appearance of the back of a Hopgarten canvas may be seen here

http://www.altekunst-vienna.com/ebusiness/filesharing/gallerypics/1172/r_Hopfgarten_family_portrait_reverse.jpg 
I think the Saintluc suggestion is so compelling that it needs to be thoroughly explored and eliminated as there seems to be no other viable alternative.

I tend to agree with both Ercole and Saintluc that the painting has the appearance of a copy in that the stylized faces and hands of the girls and the stylized swans do not fit with Hopgarten´s more sophisticated stylizations.

It is most likely that copies would have been made of the Hopgarten work in its heyday rather than later when it would have gone out of fashion - after all there were the impressionists and others to compete with. The copy could in fact be based on the missing engravings which would fit with the simplifications we can see.

A copy is likely to retain certain qualities of the original - otherwise it would be a pointless exercise.

So what happened to the painting owned by the king of Prussia? This is a question to research as it seems that the painting disappears. This and any copy is likely to predate the disappearance for obvious reasons.

I thought this summary whilst adding nothing much new draws together various strands.

When Anthony removed a small area of varnish the swab was actually black.



My concern is that the signature is hidden under all this dirt.

But under his advice he has told me not to restore the painting untill the artist is identified as this will reduce the value.

I am not sure if anybody can identify the statue in the back ground. Or i can take a better photo.

The image was used on this German Lithophane plaque

http://www.tennants.co.uk/Catalogue/Lots/120434.aspx#image 

It shows the whole of the statue, but from the nature of the object and the photo its hard to make out any more details.

And there´s a slight variant here in Berlin woolwork (lot 291)

http://www.nealauction.com/archive/0803/lot/generaldecorativearts/ 

A reference here to a possible copy in Russia

http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=11077.65;wap2 

In fact the subject seemed to have become a bit of a cliché. This is by the satirical short story writer ´Saki´:

´´ all the dull old gossips of the neighbourhood will begin to ask when we are to be engaged, and at last we shall be engaged, and people will give us butter-dishes and blotting-cases and framed pictures of young women feeding swans...´´

At the end of the 18 century the King of Prussia pronounced national his private collections. It began in Berlin the construction of museums, to entertain the collections.

Probably the picture of August Ferdinand Hopfgarten was in the Berlin Neues Museum. Constructed between 1843 and 1855 and designed by Friedrich August Stüler, the Neues Museum constitutes a key work in the history of art, museum and technology in the 19th century.

The building suffered severe damage in the Second World War in a series of massive bomb blasts.

It would be useful that the owner of the picture took contact with the direction of the museum, to know if the picture were present in the collections before the last war. I confirm my hypothesis: a copy beginning 20 century. This is an opinion, matured on the vision of the photos.

Fausta Samaritani

http://www.repubblicaletteraria.it 

web master

Thank you Hercules, absolute genius, the German litho is exactly like the painting which as you say seems a very popular subject of the time.

So who do you think is the original artist of this painting?

Do you think it was Augustus?

If my painting is a copy where is the original?

Or is mine perhaps the original?

If the original was painted in 1939/1940 why has my painting been dated to that exact time by restoration experts.

Yes the possibly does exist this is a copy but we have been studying the detail on this painting and it is phenominal, unfortunately no photos at this stage do it justice because of the yellowed varnish.

Thank you Ercole.

Do you think the setting for this painting is the great Alexander palace?

What amazes me is that if this is such a popular subject, this painting seems to be the only one in existance?

I have spent hours looking for similair type paintings and so for nil.

Thieme -Becker isn-t an artist, it´s a German Dictionary of artists,, founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thieme-Becker 

i will post pictures of the small area where varnish was removed tonight.

Can you believe the swans are white and not yellow.

Anthony removed a little varnish near the swans beak, the swab was black with grit and dirt and old varnish. He is confident this is a work of a master as he examined the work under a scope and said the brush detail is incredible

The work was examined under a microscope and Anthony said that even the Gesso is cracked. We are confident if we remove the grit and varnish a signature will be revealed but i am nervous to do this.

another work by Hopfgarten look at the similarities, the hands, faces, the ornamental decor etc.

the full title of the painting is ´´girl in the costume of the Florentine Renaissance feeding the still populär swans´´,

Patient beauty!

I fall in love with this art work, when will its true nature be revealed?

Every brush stroke in such detail the feathers almost come to life.

http://www.rubylane.com/item/6041-PS02-04-09-04/French-19th-C-Needlepoint-Tapestry 

quote:

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Originally posted by paulkyriakides


I am currently in possesion of this amazing work in South Africa, dont ask me how it got here.

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We have found out that it was brought to South Africa by a German

A museum in Berlin said the following about the pictures i sent:

´´The picture is showing the motive of the painting ´´Schwäne fütternde Mädchen´´ of August Ferdinand Hopfgarten. Adolf Rosenberg describes in ´´Die Berliner Malerschule. 1819-1879´´ (1879) a very famous painting of Hopfgarten which fits yours - as much as we could see on the photographs. It was hard to recognize the background so we could just assume.

We can´t say if it´s the original based on your photographs. Hopfgarten´s painting is from the period of 1833-1840 when he came back from Italy to Berlin. King Friedrich Wilhelm III. bought it but we don´t know where it was hung up and what happened with it afterwards.´´

I was tempted to title this post

OPEN LETTER TO A DISHONEST MEMBER

I explain :

The name of August Hopfgarten didn´t come in my answer by chance or freak and was not a ´´suggestion´´ (post of arasint above). It was an absolute certainty because Paul Kyriadides ask for a name on a forum where fully trained searchers and sometimes professional specialists in Art attempt to supply collectors with coherent answers.

It was obvious that this painting was from the romantic era around 1840 and belongs to a german/austrian school because of some details as for example the embroideries on the garment of a woman.

I did know the description of Rosenberg, not through the title provided by the ´´Museum in Berlin´´ (?) but in his ´´Geschichte die modernen kunst´´, vol.2 (see attachment 1) and warned Paul Kyriakides ´´don´t forget Google books!´´ where he could have read this almost complete description of this painting.

I compared some paintings of Hopfgarten and established that he liked such architectural shape he repeats from a painting to another around the years 1835/1845 (see attachment 2).

To sum up, I did a serious work with 266 files (951Mo) in my folder ´´hopfgarten´´ before my answer.

But I was and I am always convinced that the painting we see is a copy after the original of Hopfgarten after 1865 (and I will bring it up later) and Paul Kyriakides did´nt appreciate and didn´t stop to express his skepticism about my opinion that was his absolute right but here we come to the problem consisting in the way he used mainly by crediting with his own opinions such expert who would have said

-´´..attributed to the preraphaelite brotherhood´´

-´´I have my doubts regarding the attribution as the style of the paintings differs.where did you get the attribution from?´´ (That we had to read ´´ who is the idiot who give you this name?´´).

No problem if we could read now :´´I apologize.. - my expert apologizes..-sorry..´´ or anything in the style but...

But Paul Kyriakides (or his expert or both) would like now he could say that he never have any doubt about the fact that Hopfgarten is the author of this composition. But how to proceed. Simply by erasing the posts where these doubts exploded or with corrections to these posts.

Well! In fact, you other members can´t read these real words now. But when Paul Kyriakides wrote about an expert of the Metropolitan Museum, and forgot to say that Mr Keogh works in the (Nelson Mandela) Metropolitan Museum (of Port Elizabeth), I scented a crafty and took screenshots of the whole thread. I don´t know for you guys, but this conduct only drives me sick! [:(](see attachments 3 and 4).

Dear Saintluc
I am sorry you feel this way.

You have not seen this painting in person but only in photos and those that have seen it in person do not express the same opinion as you.

I appreciate all the research that went into your answer but i do not appreciate comments like those above.

I am sure you will be very happy if it is a copy but to me its a beautiful work and till such time as someone can proove they have the original my heart wil tell me otherwise.

After all this is done i will still have the painting and all you will have is an opinion.

If you call somebody an idiot an apologise 3 times does that make it okay.

Sour grapes i say!

Tennants had this to say:

´´Mr Allan Darwell, our painting specialist, has looked at the images and suggests that although the painting is certainly old (probably 1840-50) it is rather stiff in terms of its quality and Mr Darwell suggests it could possibly be a copy after John Francis Rigaud or Walter William Ouless´´.

Dear wasbach every time i take a picture of the whole painting it picks up a lot of glare from the varnish, i will try again.

The quote i erased from Tony Horne:

´´I have my doubts regarding the attribution as the style of painting differs. Where did you get the attribution from? I could be wrong as the painting is very dirty (discoloured varnish) and hiding a lot of detail which will only come out after the removal of the old varnish layers. I think it is definitely worth restoring as it has size and subject in its favour. Also it seems quite competently painted. It is definitely 19th. century and doubtfully a copy.´´

Regards

Tony Horne

If people (sorry i wont call them experts anymore because only Saintluc is an expert) continue to attribute this painting to 1840 and the original was painted at that time then:

I BELIEVE THIS IS THE ORIGINAL

Dear Saintluc,

what a wonderful idea to take screenshots! Thank you for this - please don´t get mad at me - very entertaining topic.

I had a strange feeling by this topic (and you answered the whole thing absolutely satisfying), that´s why I stayed out of this - although it is actually something for me.

What I still miss is a digipic of the whole painting, it seems to me that it is a smaller extract of the original.

Regards

Wasbach

A quote from a museum in Berlin

´´Dear Mr. Kyriakides,

meanwhile I figured out that the Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg misses a painting of A. Hopfgarten ´´Schwäne fütternde Mädchen´´. I forwarded your e-mail to this museum.

Sincerely

Yours

Birgit Verwiebe

Dr. Birgit Verwiebe

Alte Nationalgalerie

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Bodestr. 1-3

10178 Berlin

Tel: 20905830

Fax: 20905802

If you believe that your piece is original , then why continue to seek other opinions, if your not willing to accept what they might say. If I was confident about an item, I wouldn´t try to that prove that to others. Good luck with your item.

I would just like to point out that Saintluc has more expertise than every regional auction picture ´specialist´ combined - a fact partly proven by Mr Darwell´s analysis. Whilst I don´t particularly want to dive into the middle of a mud throwing contest, this painting for me, does not have the quality to be by Hopfgarten´s hand. As already established, this image was immensly popular and copied in numerous other artworks. Just because we have been unable to track down another painted version does not by default make this the original. I would suggest contacting the Witt library, London for images of other versions.

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Director, Pieta Fine Art Ltd

www.pietafineart.com