Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847)
Autograph music manuscript signed ('Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy') of the song, 'Tröstung', 4 Hobart Place, [London], 30 August 1846, and pencil drawing of Engelberg in the Canton of Obwalden
The song on four systems of three hand-drawn staves, on two pages, including the text for both verses, the drawing on a single page, 151 x 242mm, in an album also including inscriptions by Karl Klingemann (a song, 'Minnelied', and a poem, 'Abschied'), Ignaz and Charlotte Moscheles, Charles Edward Horsley (a song), Fanny Horsley (a drawing), Julius Geißler (drawing) and one other, all dated August and September 1846; as well as three further 20th-century inscriptions. Contemporary green leather binding, gilt. Provenance: Auguste Rosen (1824-1848) – her daughter Auguste Thorbecke née Seiff (1848-1938) – presentation inscription, 11 December 1926, to her granddaughter Ruth König on her marriage to Hans Uldall (1903-1983, composer); J.A. Stargardt, 8 & 9 April 1987, lot 736.

A song and a drawing inscribed in a friendship-book. The song is no.1 of the Sechs Lieder, op. 71, composed at Leipzig, 22 December 1845; Mendelssohn's transcription here shows a few minor differences from the published text. The pencil drawing is a somewhat idealised view of the Alpine village of Engelberg, with its Benedictine abbey: Mendelssohn visited Engelberg in 1831 and probably again in August 1842, and three watercolours of the village survive, although none identical with the present drawing, which may therefore have been drawn from memory. Listed as EZ 71 (p.279) in Ralf Wehner, 'Vorläufiges Verzeichnis des bildkünstlerischen Werkes von Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy', Mendelssohn Studien, 20 (2017).
The owner of the album, Auguste Rosen, was the sister-in-law of Mendelssohn's close friend Karl Klingemann, with whom the composer stayed during his visit to London in 1846. Mendelssohn's inscription is dated only four days after the triumphant premiere of his oratorio Elijah in Birmingham.