Water-tempera and chalk
Not in Vogt. Monogrammed lower right. On strong laid paper. 39,6 x 28,2 cm (15,5 x 11,1 in), the full sheet

Accompanied by a photo expertise from Prof. Dr. Paul Vogt.

PROVENANCE: Private collection Rhineland, acquired from Galerie Neher, Essen in 1984.

In the last years of his artistic creation Christian Rohlfs increasingly turned to still lifes of flowers. Thus a great number of these subtle flower portraits originate from those last extremely productive years, however, these water tempera sheets have little in common with conventional flower still lifes. Two fundamental components were fortunately combined in these late works by Christian Rohlfs: The water tempera technique he had developed, with its unusual structure it pays tribute to a certain formal austerity, and the artist’s special perspective on the depicted blossoms. Their outer appearance barely perceivable, Rohlfs alienated the blossoms in a kind of formal abstraction, they are integrated into a composition that basically gains its effect from color and structure, just as the contours of the white blossoms peter out into the blue of the background. [KD].