Hamlet und der Geist seines Vaters. Um 1870.
Oil on paper, laminated on cardboard.
With the estate stamp, several numbers and a gallery label on the reverse. 29.8 x 37 cm (11.7 x 14.5 in).

We are grateful to Mr Detlef Rosenberger, who examined the original work, for his kind support in cataloging this lot.

PROVENANCE: Artist's estate.
Otto Spitzweg (1843-1921), artist's nephew (until 1904).
Hugo Helbing, Munich (1905-1907).
Collection "Greber", no place (presumably Heinrich Greber, Munich, since 1907: Hugo Helbing, according to annotations in the working copy of the auction catalog).
Presumably Kohler, Lucerne (before 1965).
Gemälde-Galerie Abels, Cologne (1977, with the label on the reverse).
Private collection Baden-Württemberg.

EXHIBITION: Begegnungen mit Moritz von Schwind und Arnold Böcklin und die kleine Landschaft, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Schack-Galerie Munich, 1985, cat. no. 138 (fig.).

LITERATURE: Siegfried Wichmann, Carl Spitzweg. Verzeichnis der Werke. Gemälde und Aquarelle, Stuttgart 2002, no. 1288 (fig.).
Günther Roennefahrt, Carl Spitzweg. Beschreibendes Verzeichnis seiner Gemälde, Ölstudien und Aquarelle, Munich 1960, no. 1369 (fig.).
German Art Archive Nuremberg, estate of Hermann Uhde-Bernays, I.B, Spitzweg material, file ASF 3 (fig.).
Hugo Helbing, Munich, June 20/21, 1905, no. 548 ("Hamlet Szene. Erscheinung des Königs vor den Wächtern").
Hugo Helbing, Munich, June 26, 1907, no. 48, fig.
(Working copy: Library of Kunsthaus Zürich).
Galerie Abels, Cologne, 1977, p. 2 (fig.).