BEDRICH HAVRANEK (1821-1899): SÁZAVA RIVER LANDSCAPE

/ After 1859, Bohemia / Watercolor and gouache on paper / Signed lower left "FHawránek" / 47 x 60 cm
"Sázava River Landscape" is an exquisite work by Bedřich Havránek. A larger, but only slightly different rendering from 1859 was exhibited at the artist's collected exhibition at the National Gallery in Prague in 1985. The National Gallery's Collection of Prints and Drawings holds several drawing studies for both variations on this subject. Somewhat later Havránek painted a smaller variation of the subject, published in 1899 as "Sázava River Landscape in Světozor," p. 214. The Havránek exhibition catalogue from 1985 reproduced it and listed it as missing, but now it can be identified with this watercolor. From the assessment by PhDr. Naděžda Blažíčková-Horová: "When comparing the drawing studies with the final works in oil and watercolor, we can see how the painter progressed from his fresh, agile plein air sketches according to period rules of composition and rules of Romantic landscape painting; the resulting painting is painted in the studio, and here a role is played by painter's ingenuity. In the painting, Havránek put into play all of the elements of nature, from the stones on the banks of the Sázava, the sand and the grasses to the blue sky with floating white clouds. He primarily used grey, pale brown, green and greenish-brown tones for the rocky banks, and blue and white for the river and sky. 'Sázava River Landscape' is an excellent representative of Bedřich Havránek's work. It was with paintings like this that Havránek received accolades from exhibition visitors in the past, and he continues to receive it today."