Lot 70: NICOLAUS BAUR

NICOLAUS BAUR HARLINGEN 1767-1820 THE WOMEN'S SPEED SKATING CONTEST ON THE STADSGRACHT, LEEUWARDEN, 21 JANUARY 1809 signed and dated lower left: N. Baur 1810 oil on canvas 23 1/2 by 29 1/2 in.; 59.7 by 74.9 cm.

Greenwich, Connecticut, Bruce Museum of Arts and Science, Old Master Paintings from the Hascoe Collection, 2 April - 29 May 2005, no. 27 (as Skating Scene on a Frozen Waterway before a City).

P. Sutton, Old Master Paintings from the Hascoe Collection (exh. cat. Bruce Museum), Greenwich 2005, pp. 62-63, no. 27, reproduced (as Skating Scene on a Frozen Waterway before a City).

With Jacob Scheidwimmer, Munich, by 1942;
From whom acquired for Hitler's collection, Schloss Posen, 11 June 1942, for 7,000 RM, and deposited at Alte Aussee;
Recovered by the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section of the Allied Forces and brought to the Central Collecting Point, Munich, 1945 (no. 13471);
Given to the custody of the Austrian Goverment on 10 June 1949 and held in trust until sold for the benefit of the victims of the Holocaust;
Vienna, Christie's, Mauerbach Sale, 29-30 October 1996, lot 583;
Where acquired on behalf of the present owners by Otto Naumann.

In a letter to the present owner, dated 27 September 2010, Pieter Roelofs, a curator of Dutch art at the Rijksmuseum, identified the subject of this painting as the second of two speed skating competitions for women held in the town of Leeuwarden in Friesland in 1805 and 1809. The town can be identified by the large tower along the banks of the canal in the far distance. Known as the Oldenhove, the tower can be dated back to late Medieval times and is all that was completed of an ambitious plan for a Catholic church. Also visible in the distance on the far side of the bridge crossing the canal is the Wirdumer gate with its twin towers and soaring white steeples, demolished in 1855.

Baur's composition depicts the culmination of the games held on 21 January 1809. Although the events opened with a field of sixty-four unmarried women, only two remain to compete for the golden earring and string of black beads given to the victor. Here we see the final 148 meter race between Haukje Gerrits and Mayke Meijes. The champion is depicted to the far right, dressed in blue, as she crosses the finish line, arms raised in victory. The large crowds that Baur has depicted lining both banks of the canal and the bridge in the distance -- with one young boy even climbing high into a tree to the far left to get a better view -- testify to the popularity of these events. Baur has also interspersed several French cavaliers on horseback among the crowd, visual evidence that Leeuwarden was still under French rule at the time.

Another version of this composition, executed on panel and signed and dated 1809, is in the collection of the Fries Museum, Leeuwarden (inv. no. 7596). It is not surprising that Baur, who was himself a native of Friesland, was captivated by these events, which drew large crowds of spectators to the Stadsgracht. Not only were the competitions at Leeuwarden among the earliest and most renowned speed skating events of the nineteenth century, they also sparked a heated debate about the appropriateness of female exercise and activity beyond the confines of the home. Debate over the issue raged for weeks in the Dutch literary magazine, Algemeene Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen, with readers writing in both support and opposition to the events.