🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Found this old lithograph having trouble id-ing it the most I got was that I think it’s a German church Tia

[Stacyphi]

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Treasure of Victoria Peak - Grab it through Amazon!

[Red-Coat]

It's Bremen Cathedral (St Peter's), with the City Hall (Bremer Rathaus) on the left.

 

[Retired Sarge]

Here's a shot of it in reality (Borrowed from the internet). Went there many years ago as a kid and as a young GI.

 

[Stacyphi]

It's Bremen Cathedral (St Peter's), with the City Hall (Bremer Rathaus) on the left.

Can you make out any of the pencil inscriptions?

 

[Red-Coat]

Can you make out any of the pencil inscriptions?

Can't help much there.

Looking at the two words in the centre, the first of those two words appears to begin with ‘O’ and the last letter could only be ‘y’ or ‘g’. The penultimate letter has a dot above it, so I would assume it’s ‘i’, which would mean the last letter is most likely 'g'. It couldn’t be a German Christian name with that combination and, since there’s a full stop after it, I would think it’s an abbreviation… possibly ‘Orig.’ for ‘Originell’ (meaning ‘original’).

The second of those words looks to begin with ‘R’ and end ‘l’ with three letters in between. My guess is that it might say ‘Reral’ (meaning ‘real’). So the two words together might then be an indication that this is an original work, as opposed to a copy of an earlier engraving or a mass-produced print, although that would be an unconventional way of saying so.

The other words I can’t make out, but the general style of the handwriting suggests it's not very old. I would think certainly post-war and probably rather more recent than that.

 

[GlowingArtist]

I believe it was Original Rec'd, received, and Teller may be Antique Dealer and ARTIST Dave Teller.

 

[Red-Coat]

Looks like it has taken more than a bit of inspiration from an etching by the German artist Hans Klemke (b.1892-d.1960). Yours at the top and Klemke’s below:



The architectural detailing has a lighter touch on yours, also with differences in the foreground figures and the sky but the aspect and perspective for the buildings look to be identical. Obviously, if you sat in exactly the same place to make your sketch you’d get the same view, but it looks to be too good a match for that kind of coincidence.