Italian Peasants with Wine Flasks

1909

Ernst Barlach

Associated Names
Ernst Barlach

Artist, German, 1870 - 1938

The image shows a sketch of two people. The figure on the left is sitting up, holding an object that resembles a bottle, while the person on the right is lying down with an arm resting on the covers. Both individuals have roughly sketched facial features and hair, with the person on the left having short or bald hair, and the person on the right having curly hair. They are dressed in loosely drawn garments. In the background, there are two animals, possibly horses, in a natural setting with simple contour markings indicating undulating terrain.

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    brush and brown ink over charcoal on wove paper

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 18 x 25.2 cm (7 1/16 x 9 15/16 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1951.10.246

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Schult 1971, no. 634

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Claude Schaefer [1913-2010], Montevideo, Uruguay; sold 1950 to Lessing J. Rosenwald; [1] gift 1950/1951 to the National Gallery of Art.
[1] In Recollections of a Collector, 1976, p. 56-57, Rosenwald described being approached by a young man in South America who offered to sell his father’s collection of prints that he had brought with him from Germany. Rosenwald gives the year as 1951, but his appointment books confirm that it was actually 1950 - he left for Buenos Aires on 9 February 1950 and returned on 20 March 1950 (Library of Congress, Rosenwald Papers, Box 75). Rosenwald writes that he bought the entire collection of some 1100 prints and drawings, but as they had already been scheduled to be sent to Europe they came to the United States via Antwerp, arriving in the US in late April 1950. Rosenwald decided to keep about a quarter of the collection, destined for the National Gallery of Art, and donate the remainder to other institutions. The inventory log of Alverthorpe indicates that just over 300 works were accessioned there in May of 1950, inventory numbers 50.260-50.530, acquired from Claude Schaefer (Gallery Archives, National Gallery of Art, RG 45A1, Rosenwald Papers, Box 41).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1970

  • Ernst Barlach: 1870-1938, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1970-1971, no. 34 (as "Peasants with Wine Flasks"), repro.

Bibliography

1971

  • Schult, Friedrich. Ernst Barlach: Werkkatalog der Zeichnungen. Hamburg: Dr. Ernst Hauswedell & Co., 1971: no. 634.

Inscriptions

lower right in brown ink: EB / Florenz / 22 2 1909

Wikidata ID

Q64559825

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