Important Winter Sale presents Bruno Liljefors
Bukowskis presents Fox in a winter landscape by Bruno Liljefors at this season's largest live auction – Important Winter Sale.
The fox appears as a thematic motif in Bruno Liljefors’s work at a very early stage. Like the cat—another of the artist’s favourite animals—the fox was a graceful and agile predator, constantly in search of prey.
An important source of inspiration in his youth was Carl Friedrich Deiker, who served as Liljefors’s mentor in animal painting when he studied in Düsseldorf. In 1882 Liljefors mentions his teacher in a letter: “I have been introduced to an extraordinarily skilled animal painter, Prof. Deyker, a genial old fellow, a tremendous hunter moreover, with a number of wild boar tusks and the like dangling from his watch chain, presumably as trophies from some marvellous exploit in the forest. On the walls he has some 20–30 guns, knives, horns, bags and all sorts of things, stuffed goshawks fighting, elk and deer antlers, and heaps of furs. He paints excellent things. I was truly delighted with his pictures and have been thinking of painting under him for a time.”
Liljefors had arrived in Düsseldorf shortly after leaving the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. His departure was entirely in keeping with the spirit of the age; student revolts against the academies characterised art education across Europe towards the end of the 19th century. The academies, the aspiring artists claimed, imposed far too many restrictions through the structure of their instruction.
Liljefors had begun his studies at the Academy in 1879, where he met Anders Zorn, his contemporary but already with several years of study behind him. Zorn wished to leave the Academy, and Liljefors soon agreed with him. Neither of them could see any benefit in drawing from plaster casts of antiquities. Moreover, naked guardsmen made poor models—particularly if one wished to paint foxes, as Zorn pointed out to Liljefors. Liljefors did, however, seem to appreciate P.D. Holm, the teacher of landscape painting—perhaps naturally, given that Holm had once considered becoming an animal painter himself and had also trained as a taxidermist. Later, however, Liljefors stated that he had learned more from his fellow student Zorn than from the Academy’s professors. K.E. Russow recounts the following memory in Bruno Liljefors. A Study (1929):
“Liljefors readily acknowledges that he has much to thank his companions for, especially Anders Zorn, with whom he often exchanged thoughts about the art of painting. Zorn was the first among his companions fully to dare trust the maxim: if the tonal values are correct, one believes oneself to see the real details. Liljefors once recounted with great humour how he had meticulously painted a fox; Zorn also saw the painting and gave the verdict: ‘He looks as if the hairs had been glued onto him.’ He took a pad of drawing paper and painted something on it with plenty of watercolour and abundant water. During the conversation he balanced the pad seemingly carelessly back and forth so that Liljefors thought he was joking, but when the sheet was dry, one could see a masterfully painted fox pelt. Liljefors admits that this demonstration, which clearly showed ‘how one must see a subject’, made a deep impression on him.”
The work will be sold at Important Winter Sale
Estimate: 800 000 - 1 200 000 SEK
Viewing December 4–9, Berzelii Park 1, Stockholm
Open weekdays 11 AM to 6 PM CET, weekends 11 AM to 4 PM CET
Live auction December 10–12, Arsenalsgatan 2, Stockholm
Read more about Important Winter Sale
View all of the Works by Bruno Liljefors at Important Winter Sale
Requests & condition reports
Tukholma
Louise Wrede
Asiantuntija, nykytaide, Private Sales
+46 (0)739 40 08 19
Tukholma
Andreas Rydén
Varatoimitusjohtaja, Johtava asiantuntija, taide
+46 (0)728 58 71 39
