"Bürkel and His Traveling Circuses: Menagerie Resting in the Barn"

(1802 Pirmasens – 1869 Munich) Menagerie Resting in a Barn

In his series of works, Bürkel addresses the theme of wandering people who moved from place to place and traveled to annual fairs with their itinerant circuses and menageries. They offered fantastic performances of exotic animals to farmers and townspeople for a small fee, often accompanied by impressive music. Bürkel rarely depicts the performance itself, but rather the arduous journeys of his entourage with animals through mountain passes, idyllically idealized in the Upper Bavarian highlands. In this mature late work from 1867/68, Bürkel returns to the theme in a different form. The itinerant circus is no longer on the move but spends the night in a stable, planning to continue on its way in the morning. Bürkel captures the moment of departure in his narrative depiction. While the bear tamer has already left the stable with his bear and a companion monkey, the other circus participants are preparing: an old, worn-out horse stands at the feeding trough; beside it sits a dromedary, on whose hump a comically dressed monkey is perched; behind them is another bear; three men lean against a post, one of them occupied with a monkey holding a rifle; on the right, a mother with a child awaits the harnessing of a donkey to a two-wheeled cart. The present painting can be dated based on Bürkel’s meticulously kept sales records, in which he lists several versions of menageries or “barn with bear tamers” from 1867/68. A slightly smaller version, matching in detail, is now in the Bürkel Gallery in his hometown of Pirmasens. Bürkel likely used a painting by Philips Wouwerman, most probably “Stable with Horses” in the Pinakothek in Munich, as a source of inspiration for the composition. Bürkel’s reputation in the genre of so-called genre landscape painting still rests on his anecdotal, rural scenes from everyday life, which he places in the rustic surroundings of Upper Bavaria, Tyrol, and Italy. Exhibitions in Munich, Dresden, and Berlin, as well as the World Exhibitions in London in 1862 and Paris in 1867, made him widely known and internationally sought after. Oil on cardboard. Signed. Listed in the catalogue of drawings, number 406.

Provenance: Weinmüller Auction, Munich, November 22, 1971, lot 1234.