Die Verdammten. Um 1910.
Oil on panel.
146,5 x 100 cm (57,6 x 39,3 in).

"Die Verdammten" as well as "Die Läuterung" ount among the few works by teh artist that have been preserved.

PROVENANCE: From artist's estate.

EXHIBITION: Arnold Rechberg (1879-1947). Zwischen Kunst und Politik, Museum der Stadt Bad Hersfeld, Kapitelsaal, 17 July - 12 September, 1993, cat. no. G2 (with illu.).

Arnold Rechberg, born in Hersfeld in 1879, initially pursued a merchant's carreer and worked in his family's company. This financial independence enabled him to enrol at the Paris Académie Julian in 1904. Rechberg's works clearly reveal Art Nouveau and Symbolism as sources of influence, which the works offered in our auction also show. The "Verdammten", based on a scene of the inferno in Dante's "Divine Comedy", show clear references to works by Klinger and Böcklin, especially in terms of pictorial language and coloring. [KP].