Eesti kunsti oksjonid

Oil on canvas. 1894-1899.
Signature: ОСК. ГОФМАНЬ. ор. 265.

Oskar Georg Adolf Hoffmann (1851-1912), born in Tartu, was one of the greatest admirers of Estonia and Estonians among our Baltic Germans. He mastered our language and depicted expressive types of peasants from the Land of Mary at work, at the fair, in the tavern, and reading the newspaper in his work – several examples of his fascinating characters can also be found in the KUMU collection. When the artist managed to find models who were willing to pose for a long time, he often painted them directly but sometimes also based on photographs, especially those taken by the Estonian photographer Reinhold Sachker.

This painting of a peasant with a bowler hat, stick and tobacco box belongs, judging by the opus number, to the 1890s, a strong period in Hoffmann’s work. The artist did not assign this number to every piece but to those he considered most successful. Small-format paintings of peasants were in great demand by art commissioners, which could be explained by the fact that many city dwellers came from a peasant background themselves, which is why they wanted to have a piece of the village in the form of a painting.

Text: Mai Levin