(Zitava 1808–1888 Munich)
The Colossi of Memnon, signed Albert Zimmermann, oil on panel, 25.5 x 52.5 cm, framed, (Rei)

Provenance:
Auction Dorotheum Wien, 18th of January 1955; lot 127;
private collection Germany.

Counterpart to lot 1245

The two works here show the Colossi of Memnon, ancient Egyptian colossus statues in Thebes. Painting of the Orient reached its zenith in the 19th century; increasing tourism and the expansion of the railways contributed to opening up the Orient to the West. Expeditions to the Orient documented this exotic world in the form of travel reports and photographs. Artists such as Hubert Sattler and Leopold Carl Müller joined these travelling expeditions in order to paint scenes on location. Even so, many artists were also happy to paint Oriental scenes without having travelled to the region themselves. This artistic focus on the region was a projection of the longings and wishes of technically-advanced Europe, ones which didn’t necessarily reflect reality. This motif of the Colossi of Memnon is also found in the works of Hubert Sallter and Karl Wihlhelm Diefenbach.After setting up a school of landscape painting in Munich, Albert August Zimmermann was called to teach at the Vienna Academy where his students included Emil Jakob Schindler and Rudolf Ribarz.