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When we moved into our house it was semi-derelict, having been previously occupied by a village eccentric known as 'Funny Mary', who had existed for years without any proper cooking or cleaning facilities :- " :x , so we were very surprised to find this in this in the attic:
It took us a few years (thank Heaven for the Internet), but we eventually the story of this image. It's by a German artist called Ida Bohatta, born in 1902, a kind of German Beatrix Potter who wrote and illustrated her own books in the 20s and 30s, very well-known in her own country for rather twee watercolours featuring dwarfs and gnomes.
But this painting was done in 1914, when she was only 12 (w00t) and attending the "KURS FÜR JUGENDKUNST KUNSTGEWERBSCHULE WIEN", (also labelled "SECESSION, GRAPHISCHE KUNSTANSTALT WIEN VII, TIGERGASSE", the art school set up by Klimt and others). It seems it's not an ink drawing as we first thought, but a print made from one that would have been made to give to friends and family members.
Following an exhibition in Germany to celebrate her centenary in 2002, and the curator told us that all her childhood work had been lost during the first world war, and no other early works had surfaced. How it got from Vienna to Oxford we don't know, it certainly had not been cherished. Sadly it's not valuable as it's a print, albeit a very rare one but we're very attached to it now.
larger view of Ida Bohatta painting...
It took us a few years (thank Heaven for the Internet), but we eventually the story of this image. It's by a German artist called Ida Bohatta, born in 1902, a kind of German Beatrix Potter who wrote and illustrated her own books in the 20s and 30s, very well-known in her own country for rather twee watercolours featuring dwarfs and gnomes.
But this painting was done in 1914, when she was only 12 (w00t) and attending the "KURS FÜR JUGENDKUNST KUNSTGEWERBSCHULE WIEN", (also labelled "SECESSION, GRAPHISCHE KUNSTANSTALT WIEN VII, TIGERGASSE", the art school set up by Klimt and others). It seems it's not an ink drawing as we first thought, but a print made from one that would have been made to give to friends and family members.
Following an exhibition in Germany to celebrate her centenary in 2002, and the curator told us that all her childhood work had been lost during the first world war, and no other early works had surfaced. How it got from Vienna to Oxford we don't know, it certainly had not been cherished. Sadly it's not valuable as it's a print, albeit a very rare one but we're very attached to it now.
larger view of Ida Bohatta painting...
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(Of course she might just have found it hugely embarrassing :- " )