Max Liebermann

Paul Cassirer, Berlin (purchased from the artist on 16 March 1916)
Galerie Caspari, Munich (purchased from the above in 1916)
Sale: Lempertz, Cologne, 23 November 1933, lot 148
Probably purchased by the step-grandfather of the present owner at the above sale; thence by descent

Matthias Eberle, Max Liebermann 1847-1935, Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde und Ölstudien, 1900-1935, Munich, 1996, vol. II, p. 883, no. 1913/36, catalogued & illustrated

Original canvas. Apart from one vertical line of retouching in the back of the head and the neck of the hunter and a short horizontal line in the background upper left, this work is in good overall condition.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Trainer with Hounds belongs to the series of hunting pictures in oil Liebermann painted in quick succession in 1913, and is one of three versions showing a striding hunter in profile from the left (see also Eberle nos. 1913/35 and 1913/37). All three works are based on Hunter in the Dunes (Eberle no. 1913/34), in which the hunter is seen frontally, and which now hangs in the Österreichische Galerie, Vienna. 

In an article, 'Liebermann als Tiermaler', in the Vossische Zeitung of 27 February 1914, the journalist Harry David recounts how Liebermann first came upon the subject, when David, Liebermann, and Paul Cassirer, staying at Cassirer's summer house in Nordwijk on the Dutch coast, were invited by a local tobacco magnate to see his kennel of eight springer spaniels and join him on a rabbit hunt in the dunes.

Following the hunt, 'after the sun had set into the sea, the hunter tied the dogs together and, his gun over his shoulder, dragged the swarm of 32 legs over the dunes back to the village. We followed, and almost immediately the painter set to work. He pulled sketchbook and charcaol from his pocket, and, striding at speed over the the loose ground of the dunes, started sketching hunter and hounds. For the following morning another rendez-vous was arranged with all the hounds in the dunes.'

Liebermann showed great affection for the hounds, as evidenced by the many oil sketches he made just of the spaniels, either in their kennel or in the dunes (Eberle nos. 1913/27-1913/30).