Franz Müller-Gossen,
Signed F Müller Gossen and dated 1918. Oil on canvas 110 x 151 cm.
The German painter Franz Müller-Gossen (1871 - 1931) studied at the Kunstschule in Dusseldorf between 1886 - 1889 and, after an extensive European tour, settled in St Ives in 1890. He studied in Cornwall under Stanhope Forbes and Julius Olsson and he considered the region 'essential for his art and happiness'.
He developed a considerable reputation as a marine painter and exhibited widely all over Europe, America and Japan. In 1902, Kaiser Wilhelm II and his wife paid an official visit to Müller-Gossen’s studio in Munich where they purchased nine paintings, marking the start of the Kaiser's important patronage.