Sale: 431 / Art of the 19th Century, May 25. 2016 in Munich Lot 102

 

102
Franz von Stuck
Porträt Frau von Stuck, Um 1914.
Oil on panel
Estimate:
€ 20,000 / $ 21,600
Sold:
€ 57,500 / $ 62,100

(incl. surcharge)
Porträt Frau von Stuck. Um 1914.
Oil on panel, partly cradled.
Signed lower right. 62 x 59 cm (24.4 x 23.2 in).
Verso with small, partly fragmentarily preserved labels.
Original artist's frame, verso with two labels of the frame maker Hans Irlbacher, Munich. [CB].

PROVENANCE: Studio Franz von Stuck, Munich.
Private ownership, presumably Hamburg/Northern Germany.
Galerie Commeter, Hamburg, auction on 23 April 1937, lot 232, illu. in black and white in cat. on plate X (verso of frame with the label, there with number "178"; the catalog mentions an unidentifiable consignor "Es.").
Collection Mary Heilmann-Stuck and Albert Heilmann, Munich, since at least 1939 (verso with handwritten ownership note with address stamp; presumably acquired from Commeter 1937).
Neumeister KG vorm. Weinmüller, Munich, auction 131, 28 - 29 October 1971, lot 1503 (black-and-white illu. in cat. on plate 103).
Kunst- und Auktionshaus Dr. Fritz Nagel, Stuttgart, 245th art auction, 18 - 20 June 1973, lot 297 (blacj-and-white illu. in cat. on plate 9).
Private ownership North Rhine-Westphalia.

LITERATURE: Barbara Hardtwig, Franz von Stuck. Die Sammlung des Museums Villa Stuck, Eurasburg 1997, pp. 96f.
Claudia Gross-Roath, Das Frauenbild bei Franz von Stuck, (diss. Bonn 1998), Weimar 1999, NB33 (incl. nlack-adn-white illu.).
Cornelia Oelwein, An die Schönheit, in: Antiquitäten Zeitung no. 24, 16 November 2001, p. 997 (black-and-white illu. 2).

In 1897 the successful painter Franz von Stuck married Mary Lindpaintner. Even though the baker's daughter Anna Maria Brandmair had given birth to their child a year earlier, he decided in favor of the widow of the Munich physician Julius Lindpaintner, who had passed away in 1892. Mary was a beauty and popular with the Munich upper class, she was also known as the perfect host. She was born daughter of an American merchant father and a German mother in Brooklyn in 1865. In 1882 she married Lindpaintner in Munich and had two children with him (Olga, born in 1884 and Erik, born in 1885). Numerous artists made portraits of Mary Lindpaintner, among them Franz von Lenbach. Mary "[.] along with his daughter, who had the same name, was Stuck's favorite motif. He rendered homage to her beauty in scores of portraits. She was his true model and can be identified on may his paintings, at first still as Mary Lindpaintner, later as Mary Stuck, as Pallas Athen, as Naiade or Danzarina. However, Stuck never depicted her naked body; for his nude studies he used other ladies. At the beginning of the 20th century Stuck gradually gave up making portrays of his wife, presumably out of respect for her age. Instead he used older photographs as models for his works." (Cornelia Oelwein, An die Schönheit, in: Antiquitäten Zeitung no. 24, 16 November 2001, p. 997). It seems likely that this portray from 1914 was also based on a large-sized photograph shot in 1900 (52,5 x 31,5 cm), as it shows Mary in similar posture (cf. Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, Franz von Stuck und die Photographie, Munich 1996, no. 124, illu. on p. 81). Stuck used the same image type in many portrays of his wife (e. g. Voss 203), and also for the portray "Bildnis einer Mainzerin" (around 1914, cf. Voss 452).



102
Franz von Stuck
Porträt Frau von Stuck, Um 1914.
Oil on panel
Estimate:
€ 20,000 / $ 21,600
Sold:
€ 57,500 / $ 62,100

(incl. surcharge)