(Kratzau 1800-1876 Vienna) and Wenzel Ambros Führich (Kratzau 1768-1836) A set of twelve sketch books: landscapes, portrait- and figure studies, illustrations, poems by Maria Führich and sketches by Lucas, the son of Josef von Führich, mainly in pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolor on laid paper, various formats, 23 x 31 cm, 19 x 25 cm and smaller, (12 pieces), (Sch)

Provenance: Private collection, Austria.

The present sketch books by Wenzel Führich and his oldest son Josef von Führich comprise studies from 1825 to 1885 and prove the two artists’ wide artistic interest for preferred themes and motifs, their different apprehension and development process. In addition to composition studies for religious paintings one can find a double sided, partly coloured panoramic view of Bad Libverda and landscapes from the surroundings of Prague dated 1825 and 1827. The sketchbooks by Josef von Führich comprise drawings from the time of his study trip to Italy (1829) which reveal the artist’s interest in Italian Renaissance painting and the influence of the Nazarenes in Rome on his work. Furthermore, the books contain many landscape studies from the Salzkammergut and Styria, including Gmunden, Mariazell, Hallstadt, Traunkirche and St. Wolfgang, dated 1848, 1862, 1870 and 1885. Only few sheets are watercolours, the most were executed in pencil or pen and brown ink. The sketches are partly accompanied by poems and illustrations of Führich’s sister Maria and by child’s drawings of his son Lucas. In its entirety the sketchbooks represent a precious supplement to the corpus of drawings by Wenzel and Joseph von Führich.