Lovis Corinth: a late floral still life

In keeping with the spring season, we presented a floral watercolour by Lovis Corinth (1858-1925), one of the most important representatives of German Impressionism; works of this kind are rarely offered at auction. Painted in 1923, it dates from his late years, in which he devoted himself intensively to the floral still life — a motif traditionally associated with the transience of life.

Between Impressionism and Expressionism

The sheet shows the growing influence of Expressionism on Corinth’s late manner of painting: dense, intensely coloured compositions in which the representational begins to dissolve in the act of painting. Its lush effect recalls still lifes by Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet’s garden paintings at Giverny. Corinth himself noted in his diary in 1925: «True art is practising unreality. The ultimate!»

The watercolour, estimated at CHF 15,000, was offered at the Spring Auction 2026.