This atmospheric late 19th-century oil painting by German artist Karl Heffner (1849-1925) depicts a flooded view on the Norfolk Broads at twilight.
The turbulent British weather with its electrifying mood swings, rapid showers and unpredictability has often been the butt of numerous jokes by those sheltering in warmer abodes. Much like its inhabitants, the no-nonsense climate bustles with eccentricity - the damp chill of an October morning morphs into a radiant mid-afternoon and concludes with thunder.
European artists have traditionally tended to avoid it, preferring instead the promise of brighter, less erratic, environs on the continent. Pitching their easels in France, Germany, and Italy in a fervent light-obsessed pilgrimage. But Karl Heffner was altogether different, rather than join his artistic brethren, he crossed the Channel to tackle the wilds of the English countryside.
He’d travelled previously, including to Rome, but did so during the Winter when the conditions were less than stereotypical. Blue skies were absent from his vocabulary, they lacked drama, mood, and melancholy-tipped tonality. His palette was low-key, grey, earthy, with strips of glistening gold reserved for a drifting sun.
His interpretation of the British landscape was unusual, subdued, and at times desolate. Leafless trees stretch for passing clouds, their sinuous limbs scrabbling for light in a symphony of feathery brushwork. Figures stand silhouetted, bitten by a chill whipping across a wetland. Humans a mere fleck within nature’s tangled brush. The Norfolk Broads had never seemed so poetic.
Various exhibitions beckoned and two of his works ended up at the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A). It’s said that landscape painter Benjamin Williams Leader (1831-1923) was so enthralled that he changed his approach upon seeing them. Before long, the American critics took note and his success was solidified.
Today, Heffner totters on the edge of obscurity, lost to the record books and dusty archives of Victorian magazines. He’s rarely discussed when considering the evolution of 19th-century British landscape art, but also overlooked in Germany. His greatest legacy was capturing the quiet beauty that radiates between transient moments.
He trained in Munich under Adolf Stademann and Adolf Heinrich Lier. His works are held in numerous public collections including at the V&A in London.
Appraised at Christie’s in 2001 at £5,000-£7,000.
Signed in the lower right and framed.
Learn more about Karl Heffner in our directory.
Medium: Oil on canvas
Overall size: 41” x 31” / 104cm x 79cm
Year of creation: c. 1890
Labels & Inscriptions: Old label from M Newman Fine Art Dealers of London / Christie’s auction label from 2001.
Provenance: With M Newman Fine Art Dealers, London / British and Victorian Pictures, Christie’s, London, 10 August 2001, lot 128 / Private collection, UK.
Condition: Cleaned. Revarnished. Areas of fine and settled craquelure, as you would expect. The paint layer is stable. Frame with various marks and showing its age.
Artist’s auction maximum: £20,700 for ‘The Thames River with a View onto Windsor Castle’, Oil on canvas, Christie’s, 19th Century European Paintings, Drawings, Watercolors and Sculpture, New York, 1993.
Our reference: BRV1896
