MUNICH.- Johann Christian Ziegler (1803–1833) is one of the early realist landscape painters in Germany. From 12 April onwards the Neue Pinakothek is exhibiting paintings and oil sketches that it has received as a loan from the Museumsstiftung zur Förderung der staatlichen bayerischen Museen from the holdings of the artist’s descendants.

Born in 1803 in Wunsiedel as the son of a cloth manufacturer, Ziegler moved to Munich in 1821 where he studied landscape painting at the academy of art. He frequently spent the summer months hiking in the countryside around Munich and in the Alpine foothills. From 1823 he was regularly represented at exhibitions at the academy of art and at the Kunstverein München. In 1828 and 1829 he travelled to Ticino and Upper Italy. In addition to landscape paintings and genre scenes in the manner of Wilhelm von Kobell and Max Joseph Wagenbauer, Ziegler also made drawings and oil studies that testify to the immediacy of his observation of nature. His death in 1833 at the age of just 30 put an early end to a very promising development.

Two oil sketches by Ziegler painted at one of the lakes in Upper Italy had already been acquired for the Neue Pinakothek in the 1920s. These were supplemented in 2014 by a further six paintings and oil sketches when the artist’s descendants decided to transfer the paintings, drawings and sketchbooks still in their possession to the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen and the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in the form of a donation to the Museumsstiftung zur Förderung der staatlichen bayerischen Museen. These include a view of Bellinzona that is outstanding due to the exceptional freshness of its execution. The presentation in one of the smaller exhibition rooms in the Neue Pinakothek, supplemented by works painted by his contemporaries in Munich, is the first time these works have been shown to the public.

The museum foundation, a recognised non-profitmaking institution, enables private benefactors to support state-run museums in Bavaria through the donation of cultural assets and the provision of financial support while benefitting from tax concessions.