(Düsseldorf 1827–1905)
Venice, a view of the Piazzetta, with the Biblioteca Marciana, Santa Maria della Salute and the Dogana, signed Osw. Achenbach, oil on canvas, 138.5 x 196 cm, framed, (Rei)

Provenance:
Galerie Paffrath, Düsseldorf;
Private Collection, Germany.

In the present painting, Oswald Achenbach depicts a subject that is unusual for him. It shows a lively scene in Venice on the Piazzetta with the Biblioteca Marciana and the Dogana. To the left soars the Church of Santa Maria della Salute. Achenbach chooses a low point of view through which the viewer is drawn into the activity as a calm observer. The view roams from the Ponte della Paglia to the Piazzetta. It reveals a spring day with the routine of everyday concerns.
The artist enriches the work with architecture and figures, almost as if driven by a horror vacui. This density is found increasingly in his late work. Although he depicts a lively scene, Oswald manages to convey the peacefulness that is typical of his artistic work. He focuses his compositional power in the depiction of scenes of lasting continuity, in contrast to his elder brother Andreas, who knew how to represent dramatic actions shortly before the unavoidable happens. (compare lot 1188, Andreas Achenbach, The homecoming of the fishermen in stormy seas)
Oswald, who was compared to his elder brother throughout his life, is equal to him as an artist. And although both brothers received the same training at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts and had the same opportunities for research trips, they reveal themselves to be autonomous artistic personalities, who in their execution of landscapes could not be more different.
Their accomplishments, as well as their national and international success, have rightly earned them the epithet “the Alpha and the Omega of landscape”.