Germany, Heinrich Eduard Heyn (1856-1932), ‘Winter Landscape’,

Oil on canvas, 22.5 x 45.5 (image), 46 x 69cm (frame). Signed lower right ‘H. E. Heyn, Sr.’ Craquelure throughout, the ornate frame with some chipping, canvas requires further securing to outer frame. A moody and intriguing winter landscape, dimly lit, with a solitary figure traversing the snow strewn path towards a distant row of houses. Further along a woman ushers two children towards the town, while above the horizon a smoky chimney, distant steeple and clusters of trees are silhouetted against a golden patch of sky.
Ex – Sotheby’s (London, Feb 1980) and later private collection. The reverse with a ‘Sotheby Parke Bernet & Co.’ label affixed.
Heinrich Eduard Heyn (also Heyn Senior or Heyn the Elder) was born in Germany in 1856. He is best known for Romantic landscape paintings, often with antiquated buildings such as castles or ruins in the background. He is the older brother of the painter August Heyn (1837-1920), and studied with his brother at the Munich Academy from 1853, later working in Memmingen. In 1872, he resumed his study at the Munich Academy and later worked in Dusseldorf. Inspired by nature, expanding ideals of beauty and mediaeval history, the Romanticist art movement Heinrich championed placed a strong emphasis on experiences of awe, mystery and terror. It pushed past the rigidities of Classicism to embrace the naturalistic and emotive.