Study of a Birch tree; pencilstudies of tree trunks (verso)
Signed F.W. Dated 1876, in pencil on a loose piece of paper folded at the back which previously was part of the original sheet. Oil on paper
35.5 x 17.5 cm. (the folded strip 35.3 x 6.5 mm.)
This study painted in 1876, was adopted for use for the central Birch tree in Ferdinand von Wrights's celebrated painting "Haglandskap vid Haminanlaks" (Pasture at Haminanlaks) from 1880 in the Atheneum, Helsinki (110.5 x 175 cm.) (see fig. ). In the final picture, von Wright has rendered the Birch tree with some of the bark stripped. Birch bark is traditionelly used in Scandinavia to make fires in the wild but in the nineteenth century it was commonly used also for making different type of bags and vessels.
Haminanlaks, the remote village where the von Wright brothers were born, is situated South of Kuopio in central Finland.