(Vienna 1885–1972)
‘Das Klagelied’, signed, dated Karl Sterrer 1913 and with dedication at the upper margin: Herrn Dr. Heinrich Freiherrn von Haerdtl gewidmet.1914, inscription on the reverse: Klagelied Karl Sterrer 1913, oil on canvas, 66 x 44 cm, framed, (K)

On the reverse remains of labels: Sächsischer Kunstverein Dresden.986 (1986?)
Künstlerhaus Wien,1913/346. (3464?)

Illustrated:
Arpad Weixlgärtner, Karl Sterrer, Ein Wiener Maler der Gegenwart, publisher Gesellschaft für vervielfältigende Kunst, Vienna 1922, page 47, listed on page 212, no. 23 ...

The success of the exhibition in the Maysedergasse found expression for the artist in particular in the fact that, in the lawyer Baron Heinrich von Haerdtl, he had gained a sophisticated and generous benefactor, whose warm, selfless concern and energetic assistance would be of the greatest importance for himself and his family over the coming years... In the summer of 1913 Sterrer and his family stayed as the guests of Baron von Haerdtl in green Styria, in Pernegg in the Murtal. There the artist created, in addition to the beautiful landscape painting ‘Der grüne Acker’, a highly colourful tempera painting in which the simple example of nature is writ large, also the ‘Abendlied’ and the ‘Klagelied’... The other picture, also an oil painting, dedicated to Baron Heinrich von Haerdtl, in whose possession it is found, and which is illustrated in colour in ‘Westermanns Monatsheften’, is divided horizontally into two parts. Below, a nymph bends over to kiss a drowned man, while above, his wife sits on the riverbank and pours out her grief for her lost beloved in a song. The Mur is a terrifying, loudly rushing body of water. The Sterrer family lived close by to its banks. Dreams often troubled the artist, dreams which seemed to presage an imminent disaster. The husband of a woman whom the Sterrer family knew, a raftsman, had recently drowned in the Mur. These are the elements out of which the painting was created. As the Mur is broadened into a peaceful lake plied by sailing boats, so is everything else transformed and idealised... from the aforementioned literature.

Provenance:
Collection Freiherr Dr. Heinrich Haerdtl (1854-1939), Vienna
his heirs, Potsdam.