Heinrich PLÜHR (1859–1953)
Wassermann, a nymph and two children (or The Water Spirit)
Oil on canvas,
Signed ‘H. Plühr’ in the lower left-hand corner.
H_108 cm W_100 cm
light craquelure
This work depicts a Germanic mythological and legendary subject, featuring the Wassermann (water spirit or water man) drinking from a spring with a straw, accompanied by a nude nymph and two children crowned with flowers. Heinrich Plühr, a professor at the Weimar School of Fine Arts and a pioneer of nude photography, combines here the naturalism of the Weimar School with a symbolist poetry marked by the influence of the master Arnold Böcklin.
Our painting is part of the German Symbolist movement of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing on bucolic and allegorical themes of regeneration and the mythological world of the forest.








