German school (XX - Pflügen – Ochsengespann und Pferdepflug vor einem Gehöft

Plowing – Oxen team and horse-drawn plow in front of a farmstead
Unknown artist – oil on canvas, signature abraded

WORK
Field work in the field: In the foreground two spotted oxen with their heads together approach the viewer over the field, beside them the farmer. Behind them a pair of horses pulls the plow through the fresh furrow, guided by a farmer in a blue-gray coat with a black hat. On the horizon a farmstead with a wide roof and a slim tower with a onion-shaped dome, bare trees, above it a wide sky with drifting clouds. Strong, broad brushwork, the animals built with confident handling. Large horizontal format, 70.3 x 99.6 cm.

ARTIST
At the bottom in the green foreground are remnants of a signature in black, rubbed and no longer legible; there are no scratch marks. Therefore we do not attribute this work to anyone in particular.

Technique: oil on canvas.
Image size: 70.3 x 99.6 cm
Frame size: 87.5 x 117.4 x 4.5 cm
Framed weight: 5,500 g
Signature: rubbed, not legible.
Back: Canvas on stretcher, without inscription, without label.

CONDITION
Good condition. Canvas on the original stretcher frame, back without patches or inscriptions. Craquelure, most pronounced at the head of the right ox; canvas texture visible. Not cleaned, not restored. Please view the photos as part of the description.

FRAME AND HANGING
Black profile frame with flame and frieze moldings; a section of the ornamental strip is missing at the top, the bottom-right corner is dented; on the back of the frame wood there are old inactive wormholes. The frame belongs to the lot.

ORIGIN
From the Doris Fliegner collection. Doris Fliegner was a teacher in Salzgitter and Helmstedt and spent her life collecting art, with a focus on the Braunschweig region. Unlike Worpswede or Dachau, Braunschweig never had an artists’ colony; its art life was carried by the Art Association (founded 1832), the School of Arts and Crafts from which today’s University of Fine Arts developed, artists’ clubs such as the “Moist Brush” (1881), the city’s art dealing establishments and civic collectors – collectors like Doris Fliegner. The label of the Walter Schwarze art gallery on the large painting shows that it passed through Braunschweig’s art trade. Her collection also includes groups of works by Braunschweig painters Karl Neuß and Hedwig Hornburg and works by the Salzgitter painter Gustav Hagemann.

SHIPPING
Shipped framed, corners and surface protected, as freight. Pick-up possible in Helmstedt.

Frame: Black profile frame with flame/frieze moldings; a section of the ornamental strip is missing at the top, bottom-right corner dented; on the back of the frame wood are old wormholes (inactive per photo, check on the original).