"’He saw the holy virgin bend down and take off one of her shoes, which she handed to him with a hollow smile.’ Thus reads the passage from Emil Linder's tale ”Spelmannen som fick Madonnans guldsko” from the fairy tale series ”Bland Tomtar och Troll”, published in 1915, which the auction's beautiful watercolour illustrates. The tale was accompanied by two watercolours, of which the current catalogue number is the first of these. John Bauer had successfully illustrated the fairy tale collection that Åhlén and Åkerlund had been publishing since 1907. Thanks to this fruitful collaboration, where Bauer's imaginative illustrations accompanied stories by the foremost fairy tale authors of the time gathered in ”Bland Tomtar och Troll”, the tales have come to life and been cherished for generations. With the deepest respect for nature, for storytelling, and for the innermost feelings of the human spirit, Bauer has managed in his images to enchant us on a very special journey through time and space, to the distant lands of fantasy. No other artist is so closely associated with gnomes, trolls, and other fairy tale beings as John Bauer.

”Spelmannen som fick Madonnans guldsko”, written by Emil Linder, tells the story of a poor fiddler named Friedel. The tale is set in a small town in Tyrol. One day, as Friedel passes a small church with a beautiful sculpture of the Virgin Mary, he becomes so enchanted by her that he decides to play a lovely melody for her. The Madonna comes to life through his music and, as a thank you, gives him one of her golden shoes. When Friedel later tells how he received the shoe, no one believes him. Instead, he is regarded as a criminal and sentenced to death. When he is allowed to play for the Virgin Mary again, with a more beautiful melody than ever, she once again gives him her shoe, after which everyone believes him, and he can continue to live happily and play his music.

After studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, John Bauer travelled to Italy with his wife Esther. It was a journey that would prove significant for the artist's development and an inexhaustible source of inspiration. The masters of the Renaissance made a particularly strong impression. After spending a day at various museums in Florence, John exclaimed: "The head is full of angels, madonnas, and halos." In a letter home to his family dated June 10, 1908, John Bauer writes about his impressions of Florence and Siena: "Ah, the old 13th-century painting! I have simply never seen anything so beautiful before. There I truly have much to learn. Despite their primitive, stylised simplicity, it is astonishing what character they could imbue in their figures. Their paintings seem like jewels. It was never their intention to paint the realistic reality. They have delved into a completely different world of beauty. It is mainly saints and madonnas they have depicted, and one understands so well what a wealth of religion and beauty these paintings have bestowed upon the people for whom they were made. I am increasingly aware that it is from the oldest and most primitive artists that one has to learn as an artist."

In the auction's ”Spelmannen som fick Madonnans guldsko”, one can see the inspiration from the older masters he encountered in Italy. From the Madonna's depiction in profile, her Renaissance attire and ethereality, to the simplicity and stripped elegance of the church interior, John Bauer demonstrates how he masters a formal language inherited from earlier times. Bauer developed an original and personal expression filled with warmth that, at this point in his career, is evident in this almost enchanting composition."