Windmill at dusk

This painting from the collection of the Potocki family, former owners of Łańcut Castle, depicts an evening landscape with a river and a windmill standing over it. The colour scheme of the whole is light, grey-silver. The picture has a rough texture with visible brush strokes. In the foreground there is a river, forming a pool, in its water the moon is reflected, creating a golden-silver-grey glow on its surface. The silhouette of the windmill, standing on the riverbank, is quite vague, with only its wings clearly visible against the sky. The landscape is illuminated by the moon, partially covered by clouds. At the top of the painting the sky is dark, silvery-grey and black, at the bottom it is illuminated by moonlight with pink reflections. The painting is signed in the lower right corner of the canvas “Louis Douzette 1912”. Louis Douzette (born September 1834 in Tribsees, died February 1912 in Barth) was a German painter who was fascinated by the moonlight, creating landscapes and genre scenes by its light. He also created a small number of portraits. At the age of fourteen he began to study painting with his father, who had studied at the Belin Academy of Art. When he turned 21, he went to Berlin, where he became a pupil of the Berlin painter Herman Eschke. In 1878, he went to Paris to study painting at the Barbizon School. In 1896, he became a professor at the Berlin Academy of Art. From 1895 on, he settled in Barth, where he remained until his death. He was most acclaimed for his romantic nocturnal landscapes and was called “Moonshine Douzette”. The painting in question, set in a narrow silver inner frame and a profiled brown and black outer frame, is exhibited in the North Corridor on the second floor of the castle.