Lot 115: Akseli Gallen-Kallela , Finnish 1865 - 1931 Taos New Meksico lumen peitteessä (Taos, New Mexico under Snow) oil on canvas laid on board

signed, inscribed and dated AXEL / GALLEN / TAOS: N.M. MCMXXV lower left oil on canvas laid on board

21.2 by 26.7cm., 8¼ by 10½in.

The present work depicts a view from the roof of his house in Taos. Of the family's time there between 1924-26, his daughter Kirsti recalled: 'We often sat on the walled roof enjoying the changing light in the surrounding mountains. Some times the snow sparkled on peaks in the sunshine, sometimes the sky was as blue as the ground to Filippo Lippi's Madonnas, yet on another day the clouds floating beneath the peaks cast giant lurking shadows over the slopes.' (quoted in Katsoin Outoja Unia, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Artist and Visionary, Porvoo, 2001, p. 122).