Post by Dr. Hannes Hartung TEP

I could recover these beautiful paintings for the #Lion heirs from Franz #Sigrist from the #Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen. This is a Good Start, but the Museum is still refusing to restitute the masterpiece from Friedrich von Amerling from the Same provenance. I Love These paintings and the asking Price is very nice. Be invited to auction them at #Dorotheum! Happy Easter! The present pair of paintings were until recently in the collection of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen. Previously, these works were part of the inventory of the Munich art dealers Kunsthandlung Brüder Lion. The gallery was established in 1922 and became one of Munich’s leading dealers, and in addition to its principal premises with eleven exhibition rooms, the brothers Louis, Hans, and Fritz Lion temporarily operated a branch in Berlin, as well as a seasonal gallery in Marienbad. On 14 December 1936, the present paintings entered the collection of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen in exchange for an Impressionist work by the Danish painter Peder Severin Krøyer (1851–1909). Only a few days later, the gallery of the Kunsthandlung Brüder Lion at Maximiliansplatz in Munich was forced to cease operations under pressure from the National Socialist authorities. In August 1935, the Reichskammer der Bildenden Künste had demanded the closure of the business, and by the end of 1936 the Munich gallery was forced to shut its doors. In 2026 the works were restituted to the heirs of the Brüder Lion art dealers. Once attributed to Paul Troger (1698–1762), these two paintings are now recognised as early works by Franz Sigrist. This attribution was first advanced in the Troger monograph by Aschenbrenner and Schweig­hofer (see literature). Dating to circa 1756, these works were created during a pivotal phase in the Sigrist’s career, most probably during the same period in which the painting on the predella of the Francis Chapel in Mering, Bavaria, was executed. The compositions may have been conceived as preparatory sketches for prints. An etching of Lot and His Daughters in vertical format was published by Otto Benesch (see O. Benesch, Der Maler und Radierer Franz Sigrist, in: Festschrift zum Geburts­tage von E. W. Braun) Sigrist trained with Paul Troger in Vienna and he developed his own style, particularly in his compositional arrangements and in his treatment of light, thereby achieving a highly individual expressive quality, similar to the works of Franz Anton Maulbertsch (1724–1796) and Josef Ignaz Mildorfer (1719–1775). His oeuvre also reveals elements that relate to the early work of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770). Sigrist later worked in Augsburg as a court painter to the bishop and developed a particular interest in the medium of etching. He produced numerous drawn and painted designs for engravings for various publishers, alongside frescoes, façade decorations, and altarpieces. From 1763 onwards he is again documented in Vienna.