TRAVESÍA DE AGUAS FRÍAS

Christa Zaat

Alfred von Wierusz-Kowalski (Polish painter) 1849 - 1915
The Return Home at Sunset, s.d.
oil on canvas
73 x 119.5 cm. (28.75 x 47 in.)
signed A. Wierusz-Kowalski l.r.
private collection

Catalogue Note Sotheby's
The Return Home at Sunset epitomises Wierusz-Kowalski's large-scale pictures of horse-drawn coaches in wide open snow-covered landscapes. In the present work, two carriages ford a frozen river against the backdrop of a dramatic evening sky. Wierusz masterfully captures the half-light that suffuses the compostion, the dusk punctured by the bright headlights of the leading carriage, their reflections glimmering in the moving water below.

Wierusz studied at the Warsaw school of drawing and at the Dresden Academy. In 1872 he moved to Munich where he trained under fellow Pole Jozef Brandt and became a leading member of the Munich school of painters. Finding great success as an artist in Germany, he nevertheless returned regularly to Poland, whose landscapes would remain the main inspiration for his work.