Oil on wooden plate laminated with canvas
Firmenich/Schulze 411, there classified under 1934 and described with unknown disposition. Signed and dated lower right. With work number "214" on verso. 53,7 x 45,4 cm (21,1 x 17,8 in)
Registered under number 214 in the list compiled by the artist (on the four lists commpiled byFranz Radziwill cf. explanations on the catalogue raisonné, in: Firmenich/Schulze, Franz Radziwill 1895 - 1983, Monographie und Werkverzeichnis, Cologne 1995, p. 308). In orig. artist's frame.

PROVENANCE: Private collection North Germany.

The surreal world of Franz Radziwill is a real world at the same time. The painter is a master of hidden allusions, who can only hint at the gloomy imminent disaster by means of coloring. His visual contents combine reality, imagination and Vanitas. The basically innocent flower still life with three tulips is impressive in its precise painting style, however, it is discharged from its sensual naiveté by the darkness that surrounds the flowers. “ Die Tulpe blüht nur kurz“(The Tulip is only in Short Bloom ) is the title of a later tulip still life, and this is exactly what says more about the visual content than one may be able to assume at first. Franz Radziwill can only see reality in its dubious fugacity, moreover, he only wants to see it this way. To see beauty in what is finite, what is destructible and irretrievable is Radziwill’s true message, a message that he realizes in a style that calls reminiscence of the perfection of the old masters. [KD].