Lot 94: Georg Pauli (Swedish, 1855-1935)

On the pier
signed twice 'G. Pauli.' (lower right)
oil on canvas
39 1/8 x 55 7/8 in. (99.2 x 141.8 cm.)

C.G. Laurin, Minnen 1898-1908, Stockholm, 1931, p. 245 (illustrated).
S. de Vries-Evans, The Impressionists Revealed, Masterpieces from Private Collections, London, 1992, p. 133 (illustrated).

Carl G. Laurin Collection.
Herman Asch Collection.
Folke Aschberg, by descent from the above.

THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR

The process of industrialisation in Sweden at the turn of the century started a Summer retreat into the healthy and harmonious life of the countryside. Artists' colonies sprang up throughout the archipelago and 'a country that only a few years before had been described as "a land with nothing to paint" was suddenly discovered by artists and the pictorial mapping of the Swedish landscape began on a scale hitherto unknown. The predominance of the capital city was broken once and for all, and many artists were claiming previously disregarded regions as their personal artistic domains, and finding in them something that accorded with their own frame of mind' (T. Gunnarsson, Nordic Landscape Painting in the Nineteenth Century, New Haven and London 1998, p. 229).

In a letter dated 22 June 1887, Richard Bergh entreated Pauli; 'We must become Swedes, we have been Frenchmen long enough. We must take our French gloves off and get back into our "peau de Suède" - only then will we really conquer the Swedish public; we must pluck at their finest heartstrings - then victory will be ours forever!' On the pier is a quintessentially Swedish image; depicting a family awaiting the arrival of a steamboat - the only method of travelling from the mainland to the archipelago - it displays the same expectant stillness as in Richard Bergh's iconic Nordic Summer Evening of 1899-1900 (Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Gothenburg), symbolising Man's place within the vastness of nature.

According to Herman Asch's great grandson, the present work depicts Carl G. Laurin and members of both his and Asch's families. Laurin himself describes the work in his Memories of 1931; 'It is a very particular feeling of Swedish summer on a steamboat pier. Georg Pauli painted the pier where I often sat myself or rather took a walk when I lived at Rudboda. It was the Hustagaholm pier on Lidingö island at Kyrkviken. Pauli has in a beautiful way reproduced the quiet waiting and family gathering which characterises such places' (loc. cit).

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium