Boys at the Elbe River near Hamburg
  • Ludwig von Hoffmann
  • Darmstadt 1861 - 1945 Pillnitz
  • Boys at the Elbe River near Hamburg, ca. 1908
  • Black chalk on white paper, framing lines with black chalk,
  • monogrammed with pencil on the lower right: LvH (attached)
  • 134 × 193 mm
Provenance:
Erwin Redslob, Berlin (1884-1973)
his widow Charlotte Redslob, Berlin
Literature:
Erwin Redslob: Ludwig von Hofmann, Handzeichnungen, Weimar 1918, p. 40, ill. plate 59

This sheet reveals the artist’s hand in many respects, beginning with the theme of the young bathers, one of the artist’s favourite motives, transposed from an ideal southern landscape onto the far north.Yet an unadulterated impression of nature prevails, its astonishing depth effects enhanced by the wide bend of the riverbank as well as by the endlessly vast sky over the flat land.