Adrian Kunkler (1829-1866) Swiss, Genre Scene Oil on Masonite. Depicts a man amorously offering a flower to a girl seated beside him who looks skeptical, surrounded by three goats to symbolize his intentions. A charming cottage, tall mountain range, and nearby woods fill the background of the humorous scene. Signed bottom right. 

Condition: Some missing paint and cracking, additions to back of frame. Commensurate with age. 

Overall Size: 30 x 34 1/2 in. 

Sight Size: 20 1/4 x 25 in. 

#5135  

Jean Jules Adrian Kunkler was born in 1829 in St. Gallen, Switzerland. His father, a textile merchant, moved the family to Morges, a small village on the lake across from Geneva, when Kunkler was seven, and not long after he began his training as a painter under Jean-Léonard Lugardon. He took further private lessons in his teens under the landscape painter Jean Charles Ferdinand Humbert, and was acquainted early on with the developing Realist movement. In 1850 he began studying at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, becoming close friends with fellow students Benjamin Vautier and Alfred Dumont. In 1852 he graduated and began to assist his favorite professor, Karl Ferdinand Sohn, who encouraged him and Vautier to form the Malkasten Artists’ Association. Their interest in rustic subject matter combined with academic precision and naturalistic styles made them the center of the local art scene. In 1854 he returned to Geneva to exhibit his work, which led to commissions from private patrons throughout Switzerland, Germany, and France. Kunkler spent the next three years traveling to Savoy, Provence, and Spain for work, living in both Palma and Barcelona for a time. In 1858 he returned to Geneva to be near his family, who cared for him as he began to suffer the effects of tuberculosis. In 1862 he married, although it is unknown if he had children or not. During the last years of his life he painted sparsely, and he died in 1866 at the age of 35 at the Château de Ostier in Voiron, France. Most of his small body of work remains in private collections throughout Europe, although some can be found in museums, such as his best known work, "An Offer of Marriage," which showcases his humorous mixture of Realism and Romanticism.

Some missing paint and cracking, additions to back of frame. Commensurate with age.