Carl August Lebschée

This atmospheric suite is a characteristic example of the romantic notion of landscape as practised in the Munich of the 1820s. Lebschée had been a pupil at the Munich Academy since 1814 and had learned landscape painting from Wilhelm von Kobell, Johann Georg Dillis and Johann Jakob Dorner, while being instructed by Carl Ernst Christoph Hess in the art of etching. Lebschée’s solid grounding in craftsmanship is reflected in the artistic quality of this delicately treated suite of nocturnal and marine landscapes, in which a maximum of atmospheric density and romantic mood has been achieved in a small format. The intimate scenes are covered with a dense network of fine, varied hatchings, creating rich tonal gradations. Lebschée must have been familiar with the Romantic landscape tradition of the Dresden school. The portrayal of the stormy night sea, on which one can discern the tiny silhouette of a rowing boat in distress, is stylistically very close to Johann Christian Clausen Dahl’s 1819 etching Norwegian Coast During a Storm (Andresen 3).

Superb, contrasting and sharp impressions printed on the full sheet. Slightly foxed, otherwise in excellent, unrestored condition. From the Collection of Johann Nepomuk Seiler (1793 Munich – 1876 Kempten), not in Lugt.