(Bern 1853-1918 Geneva)

Study for ‘Carpenter in the Workshop’. Circa 1880.

Watercolour on paper.

Signed lower right: F. Hodler.

24.5 × 35 cm.

Provenance:
- Collection of Jeanne Charles Cerani-Ćišić, Mostar, until 1955.
- Collection of Fritz Maurer, Bellerive (Vaud), until 1993.
- Collection of Karl Steiner, Zurich.
- Swiss private collection.

Exhibited:
Langenthal 1992, Hodler und der Oberaargau. Kunstverein Oberaargau, no. 77 (label verso).

Literature:
- Jura Brüschweiler and Rudolf Koella: Ferdinand Hodler. Sammlung Steiner, Zurich 1997, p. 122 ff., 247, plate 45.
- Oskar Bätschmann and Paul Müller: Ferdinand Hodler. Catalogue raisonné der Gemälde, pub. by Schweizerisches Institut für Kunstwissenschaft, vol. III-1, Die Figurenbilder, Zurich 2017, p. 129 (mentioned in the footnote of no. 1100 erwähnt).


An accurately detailed, slightly larger version of this watercolour as an oil painting is located in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva and is dated circa 1880 (cat. rais. 1100). From 1875 until the end of the 1880s, Hodler regularly painted representations of craftsmen. For Hodler these were neither a criticism of the prevailing social circumstances, nor an elevation of the craftsman’s trade. Most of the depicted figures are carpenters or shoemakers, trades pursued by Hodler's brother and uncle. While later depictions of craftsmen became increasingly informed by symbolic pictorial statements, in the earlier paintings Hodler shows human figures in their work environment — people he knew and with whom he also associated.