Lot 381: Italian landscape

Ellen Thesleff (1869–1954) Italian landscape signed and dated '1925 Thesleff' (lower left) oil on canvas 15 3/4 x 17 7/8 in. (40.2 x 45.5 cm.) Painted in Italy circa 1924-1925

40.2 x 45.5 cm.

circa 1924

[Probably] Helsinki, Salon Strindberg, Ellen Thesleff, 1926.

L. Bäcksbacka, Ellen Thesleff, Helsinki, 1955, no. 609, p. 161.

The Association of Finnish Artists Annual Lottery, 1930, no. 30. Private collection, Helsinki, winner of the above prize, and thence by descent to the present owner.

Thesleff made altogether nine trips to Italy between 1895 and 1939 always including Florence for a longer sojourn. She was educated in Paris at the Académie Colarossi which she attended 1891-1893, but it was Florence which was to become her main source for inspiration. The hills of the surrounding Tuscan countryside, the pictures in the Uffizi Gallery with Botticelli taking the number one place, the bridges of the Arno river, the city townscape with the cupola of the dome seen from Fiesole, the seashore in Forte dei Marmi were food for her fantasy and visionary ideas. She painted her inner landscapes following her own voice thus always seeking to surprise herself: “In art you ought to surprise yourself”, (ibid., p. 12), she wrote Thyra. Thesleff was also an excellent figure and portrait painter with fascinating interpretations of character and movement.