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Provenance: J. Freund;
Kurt Meissner
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Exhibited: Zürich, Galerie Kurt Meissner, Hundert Zeichnungen aus fünf Jahrhunderten, 1984, cat. no. 18
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Literature: Kurt Meissner. Gemälde und Zeichnungen aus sechzig Jahren Kunsthandel, Zürich, Galerie Kurt Meissner, 2003, pp. 216-7, 306, reproduced.
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Notes: This drawing is a particularly clear expression of Menzel's enduring fascination for the forms and visual variety of baroque sculpture and architecture. It records only the elaborate central plinth of this celebrated fountain, and one or two of the flanking figures of reclining river gods. The fountain, which dates from 1623, still stands in the fountain court of the Munich Residence. In reality, the plinth and figures shown here stand in the middle of a wide basin, with at its edges four large bronze figures, made by Hubert Gerhard in around 1600, and the whole ensemble is crowned by the monumental statue of the standing figure of Otto von Wittelsbach. Rather than showing the whole sculptural ensemble, Menzel has, however, made his drawing from a much closer viewpoint, exploring and revelling in the elaborate surface richness of this magnificent fountain. The drawing was probably made during one of the artist's later visits to Munich, between 1881 and 1892.
