The Oyster Girl
Karl Gussow1882
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Liverpool, United Kingdom
This portrayal of a young serving-girl, neatly-dressed in rural peasant costume, holding out a plate of opened oysters and a lemon, is typical of Gussow’s minutely detailed realism. Gussow was considered a leading 19th-century German exponent of the growing school known as ‘Naturalism’. Anton von Werner, the Director of the Berlin Academy, where Gussow taught between 1875 and 1880, described Gussow’s ideal as being “the exact reproduction of nature”. This was one of three paintings that Gussow exhibited at the Liverpool Autumn Exhibitions held in the Walker between 1879 and 1881. During this period he was based in London and presumably bought the panel on which he painted 'The Oyster Girl' in 1882 from the London-based panel makers Winsor & Newton.
- Title: The Oyster Girl
- Creator: Karl Gussow
- Creator Lifespan: 1842/1907
- Creator Nationality: German
- Creator Gender: Male
- Creator Death Place: Pasing, Germany
- Creator Birth Place: Havelberg, Germany
- Date Created: 1882
- tag / style: Karl Gussow; portraiture; oysters; lemon; serving girl; plate; headscarf; Naturalism
- Physical Dimensions: w630 x h764 cm (Without frame)
- Artist biographical information: At the Berlin Academy Gussow was considered a superb teacher whose students saw him as the ‘Regenerator of Painting’. His most famous pupil was the German artist Max Klinger (1857-1920) who became celebrated (shortly after leaving Gussow’s studio in 1879) for his surreal print series of a sinisterly animated 'Glove' (first published in 1881). After Gussow left the teaching staff of the Academy in 1880 he became an especially sought after Berlin-society portrait painter. By the beginning of the 20th century, however, Gussow’s minute photographic technique and striking contrasts of tone and colour, together with his sentimental subject matter, had lost favour in Berlin. In 1907 Richard Muther condemned him for triviality in his volume the 'History of Modern Painting', but conceded the vigour and directness of some of his figure studies, including 'The Oyster Girl'. Paintings by Gussow are rarely found in British public collections. 'The Oyster Girl' was presented to the Walker Art Gallery because the Gallery already owned Gussow’s, 'Old Man’s Treasure' (WAG 2877) which made Gussow’s name when he showed it at the Akademische Kunstausstelung in Berlin in 1876.
- Additional artwork information: The Oyster Girl' was one of three Gussow paintings exhibited at the Liverpool Autumn Exhibitions held in the Walker between 1879 and 1881.
- Type: Oil on bevelled wood panel
- Rights: Presented by the Art Fund in 1996
Get the app
Explore museums and play with Art Transfer, Pocket Galleries, Art Selfie, and more
