Waterfall Swedish Oil Painting by Marcus Larson 1825-64

Stormy River Landscape

Original Oil Painting Painting on Canvas

by Marcus Larson (1825-1864)

Independently Authenticated by Bonhams Auctioneers

A superb oil painting on canvas by one of the most brilliant Swedish painters of the 19th century Marcus Larson.  The painting is a wonderful example of the artist's work, the subject typical of many of the artist's paintings.  The painting remains in very fine condition, the canvas laid onto board but entirely free of restorations, the canvas without tears or repairs.  The painting is clean and attractive, there is a small fleck of white paint upper left and a tiny fleck of missing paint upper right, otherwise pristine - in remarkably good condition for it's age.  The painting is presented in a fine early 20th century wood and gilt composite frame which remains in good condition though with some losses, scratches and other imperfections.  As with many of Larson's paintings this work is not signed.  There is an inscription on the reverse of the later board and an plaque on the frame giving the artist's name and dates.  The painting has been independently authenticated by Bonhams (one of the World's leading fine art auction houses).

Marcus Larson, one of the most brilliant of Swedish painters in the 1800s, enjoyed a brief but dazzling career which ended in destitution before the age of forty. His origins were simple, he started life as a saddler, gained admission to the Academy of Art and was influenced primarily by the romantic painters C. J. Fahlcrantz and J. C. Dahl.  He won early notice for his masterly panoramas of the unspoilt countryside of Småland in southern Sweden and for his views of the storm-swept west coast - paintings which he boastingly completed in an astonishingly short space of time. His depictions of nature's unbounded power and furious temperament, against which man is revealed in all his weakness and insignificance, have been seen by later generations as blatantly striving for effects of romantic terror, but they can also be regarded as warnings to those exploiters and profiteers who imagine that man can master nature.  A painting of shipwreck in black and red by Marcus Larson was Edvard Munch's favourite at the Göteborg Museum of Art.