William Henry Dethlef Koerner (1878-1938)


A Mystical Incantation signed and dated 'W.H.D. / Koerner / 1922' (lower right)oil on canvas36 1/4 x 34 1/8inPainted in 1922.
|ProvenanceSale, Jim Fowler's Period Gallery West, Phoenix, Arizona, October 23, 1983, lot 209.Acquired by the late owner from the above.LiteratureL.F. Hartman, "The Transit of Venus," Redbook Magazine, May 1923, p. 67, illustrated. S.H. McGarry, Honoring The Western Tradition: The L.D. "Brink" Brinkman Collection, Kerrville, Texas, 2003, p. 20, illustrated.The present work was reproduced in the pages of Redbook Magazine, in the May 1923 issue, to illustrate Lee Foster Hartman's story entitled "The Transit of Venus." The caption underneath the illustration read, "The girl gazed into the fire without answering. She might have been a priestess intent upon some mystical incantation."