"Hunting the lion" - great skill

(1884 Neustadt a. d. Hardt - 1957 Bad Dürkheim) "Lion Hunt". Original title Scene from North Africa with two Bedouins on horseback in combat with a lion. Executed with virtuosic, fast, broad, loose brushwork and impasto application of paint, this early work by Dill, created in 1921, is a stunning homage to the famous lion hunt paintings by Rubens and Delacroix. In such equestrian and lion images, Dill was able to demonstrate his great mastery in depicting fleeting movements. Equestrian and horse motifs were, alongside predatory cats, the main subjects of the painter who studied at the Munich Academy from 1908 to 1914 and as a master student with Heinrich von Zügel from 1909 to 1913. At the beginning of the 1920s, Dill engaged multiple times with the motif of the lion hunt; in 1922, Dill presented a comparable "Lion Hunt" at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition, and in 1922/23, the Modern Gallery Thannhauser in Munich arranged a Dill exhibition with a series of his latest paintings, in which the present work could also have been shown. In 1923, a longer article about Dill was published in the influential art magazine "Die Kunst für alle" (pp. 259-265) by the art historian Dr. Willy Burger, who also writes about his lion hunt paintings: "Among the best works of the artist are certainly those representations of the highest intensification of movement, of combat, when the hunted predator and horse and rider roll in a single, wild tangle, a picture of the most exciting, gripping life (...) The bold, grand gesture of the combat images corresponds entirely to the weight and energy of the brushwork, which is illuminated by fanfare-like bursts of color, rhythmically dividing the canvas into broad, large areas." Oil on cardboard. Signed and titled on the verso with a label, dated 1921; label of the Modern Gallery Thannhauser, Munich (1921-1928) with number 3853. 47 cm x 69.5 cm. Framed. Provenance: German private collection, Rhineland-Palatinate.