Theodor Alexander Weber

THEODOR ALEXANDER WEBER (Germany, 1838-1907)
"Fishermen unloading the catch".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 40x28 cm.

This painting was probably made in the Dutch coast, in the North Sea. The navies and the life of the sailors were the favorite subject of the German painter Theodor Alexander Weber. In this scene of vertical format (which allows to represent a wide sky), we see a group of fishermen who are preparing to unload their catch on the shore, helped by their wives and children. A windmill is silhouetted in the background, next to a large house.

Theodor Alexander Weber was born in Leipzig. In 1853, at the age of 15, Weber became a pupil of the landscape painter Wilhelm Krause, who specialized in seascapes. Thanks to this background, Weber later became a pupil of Eugène Isabey in Paris. On the occasion of the great Paris Salon exhibition of 1861 he made his debut with his works "View of the City" and "Shipwreck". In 1870 the Franco-Prussian War began, so Weber, anticipating his imprisonment as an undesirable German, went into exile in London. From 1874 he lived and worked in Brussels and in the summer of 1883 he returned to Paris, where he settled as an independent artist.