19th Century European Art and Old Masters

Lot note:

Originally from Germany, Eduard Hau attended the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in 1830, but left for Saint Petersburg, Russia, where he became of the member of the Imperial Academy of Art. Although he was accomplished at portraiture, it is his exceptional architectural paintings in watercolor and gouache for which he is best known. In the 1850s, Emperor Nikolai I commissioned Hau to paint the interiors of the Winter Palace, including the present work, The Bathroom of Grand Princess Maria Alexandrovna, 1852. The Winter Palace was the Russian Empire’s official residence from the 18th to the early 20th centuries and is now part of the Hermitage State Museum complex. The palace was constructed between 1754-1762 by the Italian architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli in the Elizabethan Baroque style, a term that describes the Russian Baroque architectural style under Empress Elizabeth Petrovna (1741-61), which includes elements of French Rococo. Painted in extraordinarily minute details, Hau’s “interior portraits” are almost as accurate as photographs and capture all the splendor, brilliance, and opulence of the imperial palace. In addition to the Winter Palace, the artist painted the interiors of the Peterhof Palace and other Royal residences. The exactness of his works was applied in the restoration efforts of the Great Gatchina Palace in Leningrad Oblast, Russia, after its destruction during the Second World War. After a long career in Russia, Hau moved to Estonia in 1880, where he spent his final years.

The present work comes from the Southampton, New York home of the collectors Catherine Cahill, who is now deceased, and William L. Bernhard, who continues to live in their Park Avenue home in Manhattan. Lifelong New Yorkers, they passed the summers in Southampton and Washington, Connecticut, and the winters in Palm Beach, where Ms. Cahill decorated their retreat on Major Alley Way with the noted interior designer, Keith Irvine of Irvine and Fleming.  

Ms. Cahill was an animal rights activist, and a daughter of John T. Cahill, a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and a named partner in the international law firm, Cahill Gordon & Reindel. Mr. Bernhard is a philanthropist and a descendant of the Lehman family of investment banking fame. He has served on many Boards of Directors, including the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art, Film at Lincoln Center and the Winston Churchill Foundation.