ALEXANDER KOESTER
1864-1932

Born in Neustadt, Germany in 1864, Alexander K\xF6ster studied under Karl Heinrich Hoff and Claus Meyer at the Karlsruhe Academy and with Karl de Kalckreuth at Weimar. A skilled and versatile artist, he began his career working across portraiture, genre, still life and landscape. However, in the 1890s the artist settled in the Tyrolsese village of Klausen, on the shores of Lake Constance, where his focus narrowed to local, watery landscapes, often incorporating groups of swimming ducks. By the turn of the 20th century, this anatine specialization had earned him the sobriquet 'Duck K\xF6ster'; a duck painting won him a gold medal at the 1904 St Louis World's Fair, and they remain his most sought-after subjects.

The present work dates from the midpoint of K\xF6ster's career, in the years prior to World War I. It combines both the close observation and fine draughtsmanship of his early Naturalist works with the more Impressionist brushwork of his mature style, most notably in the loose painterly treatment of ripples, feathers and shoreline herbage.

Dr David Hansen