A Huntsman and a Peasant Woman by the Isar River with a View of Munich

Born into an artistic family, Wilhelm von Kobell was first taught by his father, the court painter Ferdinand Kobell (1749–1799), then attended Mannheim’s drawing academy, at the time under the influence of seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Early inspirations for Kobell included the animal pictures of Paulus Potter (1625–1654), Nicolaes Berchem (1621/22–1683), and Philips Wouwerman (1619–1668), as well as English "sporting prints," especially those depicting jockeys or hunters on horses. His friendship with Johann Georg von Dillis (1759–1841) helped him to discover the Bavarian landscape, and he moved away from the Dutch influence, becoming receptive to the effects of natural light and brighter colors. Kobell’s reputation rests on his small, jewel-like Begegnungsbilder (encounter pictures) of 1815–25, in which landscape, figure, and animal staffage are closely linked (Siegfried Wichmann, Wilhelm von Kobell: Monographie und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke, Munich, 1970, p. 72). His oeuvre extends, both in time and style, from the late Baroque to the end of the Biedermeier era, to whose development he contributed decisively, being, in fact, the main representative of this style in Munich.

This picture and its pendant in the Cleveland Museum of Art (see Notes) are typical examples of Kobell’s Begegnungsbilder, which were coveted by the landed gentry and bourgeoisie. Kobell used his limited repertoire of figures, animals (see the sketch cited in Notes), and landscapes ingeniously. In only slight variations on the same theme, mounted horsemen, local peasants, or gentry usually meet in the artist’s favorite settings: the shore of the Tegernsee, with its view onto the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, or, as here, the banks of the Isar River.

The present painting stages an encounter between a huntsman, mounted on a black thoroughbred and accompanied by a white hunting dog (a German Riesenbracke), and a young peasant woman, who wears the costume of the Munich environs and is accompanied by a small boy. Their location on the elevated bank across the Isar offers a sweeping view toward the flat plains around Munich in the northwest and the city’s skyline beyond. The towers of the Theatiner-Kirche rise just below the horse’s belly, while the north tip of Prater Island in the Isar is framed by the dog’s tail. In the mid- and far distance peasants toil in the fields, carry ballasts on their heads, or sit in an oxen-drawn wagon with bundles of hay. The Cleveland pendant depicts the same elevated bank of the Isar, but its view captures Munich from slightly farther south (Diederen 1999, pp. 380–82). In both pictures the sun casts long shadows on a serene and translucent late summer afternoon.

[2015; adapted from Rewald 2005]
 

Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): WKobell 1823 [W and K in monogram]

Major William Corbett-Winder, Vaynor Park, Berriew, Montgomeryshire, Wales (until 1905; sale, Christie’s, London, June 17, 1905, no. 25, as “Sportsmen on Horseback, and other figures—a pair," for £14.3.6 to Kenderick, with pendant); Kenderick (from 1905); sale, Sotheby's New York, June 14, 1973, no. 353, as “Two Riders in a Landscape and The Afternoon Ride: A Pair of Paintings," for $75,000 to Spanierman, with pendant; [Ira Spanierman, New York and Germany, from 1973]; [Rudolf J. Heinemann, Lugano, until 1980; sold to E. V. Thaw & Co., with pendant]; [E. V. Thaw & Co., Inc., New York, with Artemis Fine Arts Ltd., London, 1980–82; sold to Wrightsman]; Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, New York (1982–his d. 1986); Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, New York (1986–d. 2019; cat., 2005, no. 97)

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT, BY TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION BY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART.

Siegfried Wichmann. "Zwei unbekannte Münchenansichten von Wilhelm von Kobell." Weltkunst 43 (August 1, 1973), p. 1209, ill.

Siegfried Wichmann. Wilhelm von Kobell, 1766 bis 1853: Erster Nachtrag zum Verzeichnis der Werke. Starnberg/Munich, 1973, unpaginated, no. 41, ill. (color).

Artemis Fine Arts, Inc. Artemis 79–80: Consolidated Audited Annual Report (1980), pp. 36–37, no. 15, ill. (color), discusses The Met's picture and its pendant as examples of Kobell's "encounter" paintings of horsemen and Bavarian peasants in landscapes.

Roger Diederen in European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland, 1999, vol. 2, p. 381, fig. 132a, under no. 132.

Sabine Rewald in The Wrightsman Pictures. Ed. Everett Fahy. New York, 2005, pp. 346–48, no. 97, ill. (color).

Hakim Bishara. "A Glorious Gift of European Artworks Is on Display at the Metropolitan Museum." Hyperallergic. November 19, 2019, ill. (color, installation view) [https://hyperallergic.com/528444/a-glorious-gift-of-european-artworks-is-on-display-at-the-metropolitan-museum/].

The pendant to this picture is in the Cleveland Museum of Art: Hunter and Lord at the River Isar with View of Munich, 1823. Oil on wood, 9-3⁄4 × 8 in. (25 × 20.6 cm). Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund (1981.11).

A related drawing is in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich: Study of a Horse, ca. 1805. Pencil on white paper, 5-3⁄4 × 5-3⁄8 in. (14.7 × 13.7 cm). (1697:261).

This work may not be lent, by terms of its acquisition by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.