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PROPERTY OF THE LATE ALFRED SOMMERGUTH OF BERLIN ADOLPH VON MENZEL GERMAN, 1815-1905 ERINNERUNG VOM DAMPFBOOT AUF DER DONAU (SOUVENIR OF A STEAMBOAT TRIP ON THE DANUBE)

Signed with initials A.M. l.r. and inscribed and dated Erinnerung v. Dampfboot a.d. Donau 52 l.l.

Pastel on brown paper

PROVENANCE

Alfred Sommerguth, Berlin
Sale: Hans W. Lange, Berlin, 7 February 1939, lot 22 (sale designated Eine Berliner Privatsammlung)
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal
Restituted to the heirs of Alfred Sommerguth in 2005
EXHIBITED

Bremen, Kunsthalle Bremen, Adolph Menzel. Handzeichnungen, 1963, no. 53, p. 9, illustrated
Berlin, Haus am Tiergarten, Adolph Menzel 1815-1905. Pastelle, Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, 1965, no. 26
London, Bristol, Kingston upon Hull & Leicester, Arts Council exhibition, Drawings and Watercolours by Adolph Menzel, 1965, no. 30
Erlangen, Altes Rathaus, Adolph Menzel - Gemälde und Zeichnungen, 1971, no. 41

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

Wuppertal, Von der Heydt Museum, Verzeichnis der Handzeichnungen, Pastelle, Aquarelle, 1965, no. 206
Werner Hofmann ed., Menzel - der Beobachter, Munich, 1982, no. 59, pp. 112-113, illustrated
CATALOGUE NOTE

Executed in 1852, the present work was inspired by Menzel's summer holiday that year spent travelling through southern Germany and Austria. Following the completion of a lucrative commission for the Paris art dealer Goupil, Menzel had the time and financial wherewithal to take his sister Emilie on a grand tour.

They spent ten weeks exploring Franconia, Bavaria and the countryside around Salzburg before taking a steamboat along the Danube from Regensburg to Vienna. During the cruise Menzel made pencil sketches of both the passing scenery and architecture, as well as of his fellow travellers. Back in Berlin he worked many of these sketches up into finished watercolours and pastels, including Erinnerung vom Dampfboot auf der Donau.

Like his contemporary Honoré Daumier (fig. 1), Menzel was fascinated by modern modes of transport, including hot air balloons, trains, and steamships. During his frequent travels 'Menzel's perceptive eye did not shun banalities. [He] portrayed in an unrelenting manner his fellow travellers as they revealed themselves to him in their public displays of intimacy. Menzel's drawings often give unembellished information about human behaviour, for his sense of realism did not omit trivialities. He became a chronicler of his time, but the innovative and rich renderings of his sheets distinguishes them from the popular art of the period.' (Ursula Riemann-Reyher, Adolph Menzel 1815-1905. Master Drawings from East Berlin, Hong Kong, 1990, p. 78).

Depicting a group of travellers huddled up on deck and in conversation, Menzel, in the present work, depicts the 'modern travellers' of his time. These are not wide-eyed Grand Tourists, but seasoned passengers accustomed to steam travel, for whom the river cruise is less an adventure than a means of conveying them as efficiently as possible to their destination.

fig. 1 Honoré Daumier, Intérieur d'un wagon de première classe © Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery 361D05101