This beautiful late 19th-century oil painting by German artist Karl Heffner (1849-1925) depicts an evening view with a river, rowing boat, and wood.
As the final embers of the day fall beyond the horizon in a graduated haze of burnt sienna, a girl gathers sticks on the shore of a broad waterway. Alongside, two figures occupy a small rowing boat, one smokes a pipe while the other holds firewood. It’s a skilfully rendered scene with a superior composition and a tranquil mood. The mass of trees on the left intelligently guides the eye from the foreground towards a distant vanishing point. It’s a masterclass in tone.
Heffner enjoyed the curiosities of the British countryside - preferring the damp chill of an October morning to the radiance of the continent. 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.
London gallery owner Thomas McLean soon made his acquaintance and forged a productive relationship. MacLean was a print-seller, holding exhibitions at his Haymarket Gallery, which he proudly advertised as ‘next to the theatre’. Numerous works by Heffner were engraved, which bolstered his popularity not only in the UK but also in France and ultimately back home.
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.
His works are held in numerous public collections including at the V&A in London.
Signed in the lower left and framed.
Learn more about Karl Heffner in our directory.
Medium: Oil on canvas
Overall size: 55” x 34” / 140cm x 87cm
Year of creation: c. 1880
Labels & Inscriptions: Name plaque attached to frame. Stencil on the reverse, probably relating to a Christie's sale.
Provenance: Private collection, UK.
Condition: Cleaned. Craquelure throughout. 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: BRV1897
