Sale: 436 / Modern Art I, Dec. 10. 2016 in Munich Lot 203

 

203
Max Liebermann
Bauer an der Wiege - Der Witwer, Um 1890.
Charcoal
Estimate:
€ 30,000 / $ 32,400
Sold:
€ 30,000 / $ 32,400

(incl. surcharge)
Bauer an der Wiege - Der Witwer. Um 1890.
Charcoal and white chalk.
Lower left signed. On gray paper. 36.5 x 52.3 cm (14.3 x 20.5 in), the full sheet.
The artist used the same motif in the painting "Der Witwer" from 1873 (cf. Eberle 1873/1).
Expressive Dutch genre study with a pictorial character.
With an expertise (duplicate) from Drs. Margreet Nouwen from 29 January 2008.

PROVENANCE: Collection Mr. Artmann, owner of Rembrandt Gallery, New York.
Private collection USA (acquired from aforementioned).
Private ownership.

EXHIBITION: Max Liebermann. H. G. E. Degas. Constantin Meunier, Kunstsalon Bruno und Paul Cassirer, Berlin 1 November - 1 December 1898, cat. no. 35.
Deutsche Kunst-Ausstellung, Dresden April-June (?) 1899, cat. no. 655 (room 26).

LITERATURE: Bernhard Echte, Walter Feilchenfeldt (editor), Kunstsalon Bruno & Paul Cassirer. Die Ausstellungen 1898-1901, Wädenswil 2011, p. 40 with illu. (interior view of a room at Kunstsalon Cassirer in 1898, with the drawing "Bauer an der Wiege" to the right of thre door) and p. 64 with illu., as well as on p. 489.

The genre studies that Max Liebermann made during his extended stay in the Netherlands enriched his graphic oeuvre in a unique way. Liebermann's excellent graphic talent, at best comparable with that of Menzel, comes out in this chalks drawing in a very special manner. The careful balance between a linear conception and the wiped pictorial notion, underlined by a subtly applied white heightening, hints at the artist's sophisticated method. His mastery in handling the different technical means becomes particularly obvious in drawings like this. Such genre studies of supposedly "simple folks" and their surroundings earned Liebermann the reputation of a "painter of the poor". Alongside their artistic quality they are also documents from an epoch of rural life in the days of an upcoming industrial age. To Liebermann these effects had to be captured in artworks. [KD]



203
Max Liebermann
Bauer an der Wiege - Der Witwer, Um 1890.
Charcoal
Estimate:
€ 30,000 / $ 32,400
Sold:
€ 30,000 / $ 32,400

(incl. surcharge)