Sale: 533 / Modern Art Day Sale and Gerlinger Collection, Dec. 10. 2022 in Munich Lot 497

 

497
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Armband mit Bergkristall (Silbernes Doppelarmband mit Bergkristall), 1920.
Silver, cut, chiselled, chased. Mountain crysta...
Estimate:
€ 6,000 / $ 6,420
Sold:
€ 30,000 / $ 32,100

(incl. surcharge)
Armband mit Bergkristall (Silbernes Doppelarmband mit Bergkristall). 1920er Jahre.
Silver, cut, chiselled, chased. Mountain crystal, set in claws.
Wietek 452. With the signature stamp on the inside. Diameter: 7.2 cm (2.8 in). Plate: 3.2 x 2.5 cm (1.2 x 0.9 in). Height of bracelet: 1,5 cm (0,5 in).
[KT].
• Among the "Brücke" artists, Schmidt-Rottluff creates the most extensive and diverse body of jewelry.
• The amber pendants go back to his finds on the coast of Nida.
• The artist's jewelry pieces are individual gems, often made especially for a close circle of collectors, friends and family.
• In a fascinating way, the pieces combine characteristic concepts of form from the artists' work between jewelry, collector's item and commodity.
• From the artist's rarest work group on the auction market (source: artprice.com)
.

PROVENANCE: From the artist's estate.
Collection Hermann Gerlinger, Würzburg.

EXHIBITION: Karl Schmidt-Rottluff: Das nachgelassene Werk seit den 20er Jahren. Malerei, Plastik, Kunsthandwerk, Brücke Museum, Berlin, August 20, 1977 - January 15, 1978, cat. no. 169.
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff: Aquarelle, Farbstiftzeichnungen, Schmuck, Kunstverein Paderborn 1982, cat. no. 29.
Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig (permanent loan from the Collection Hermann Gerlinger, 1995-2001).
Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle an der Saale (permanent loan from the Collection Hermann Gerlinger, 2001-2017).
Nur für ihre Frauen. Schmuck von Karl-Schmidt-Rottluff, Emil Nolde, Erich Heckel und Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Stiftung Moritzburg, Kunstmuseum des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle (Saale), October 26, 2003 - January 11, 2004, no. 34 (with illu.).
Buchheim Museum, Bernried (permanent loan from the Collection Hermann Gerlinger, 2017-2022).

LITERATURE: Wilhelm R. Valentiner, Schmidt-Rottluff. Junge Kunst, vol. 16, Leipzig 1920.
Max Sauerlandt, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff – Ausstellung im Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, in: Hamburger Fremdenblatt, Rundschau im Bilde, June 11, 1925. Reprinted in: Gerhard Wietek, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Plastik und Kunsthandwerk. Werkverzeichnis, Munich 2001, pp. 151-154.
Heinz Spielmann (ed.), Die Maler der Brücke. Sammlung Hermann Gerlinger, Stuttgart 1995, p. 407, SHG no. 722 (with illu.).
Gerhard Wietek, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Werkverzeichnis der Plastik und des Kunsthandwerks, Munich 2001, no. 452 (with black-and-white illu.).
Hermann Gerlinger, Katja Schneider (eds.), Die Maler der Brücke. Inventory catalog Collection Hermann Gerlinger, Halle (Saale) 2005, p. 109, SHG no. 244 (with illu.).
Regina Freyberger (ed.), Geheimnis der Materie. Kirchner, Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff, Ex. cat. Städelmuseum Frankfurt, 2019.

The ornament of this double bracelet is the uncut mountain crystal set in a silver plate, which is held by strong claws cut out of sheet metal. The blows of the hammer and chisel left a rough mark on the plastically furrowed silver plate. The unevenly long, thick-walled, coarsely studded parts of the bracelet have triangular hallmarks, and they are connected to the center piece by strong eyelets. As early as in 1920, Wilhelm Valentiner praised comparable "Schmucksachen" by Schmidt-Rottluff with their "seemingly primitive, in fact powerfully new technique born out of the material," in which the "dull colors of uncut stones interact most charmingly with the pale shimmer of an unpolished silver setting" (Valentiner, Schmidt-Rottluff, Leipzig 1920). And Max Sauerlandt was fascinated by the "edgy and angular stoniness of the mineral, the roughness of the fracture, the natural charm" as well as by the "sharply pointed grasping claws" that hold the stones as "beloved or precious objects like the fingers of the human hand" - as can be read in his article in the ‘Hamburger Fremdenblatt’ about the exhibition he organized at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in 1925 (Sauerlandt, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff - Ausstellung im Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, in: Hamburger Fremdenblatt, June 11, 1925). Schmidt-Rottluff's began to make brass and silver brooches in Dangast in 1910, in 1959 he made his final piece, a silver ring with a pebble. His jewelry making endeavors saw their peak in the 1920s. Gerhard Wietek estimates a total number of 200 pieces from five decades. Jewelry thus by no means remained an episode for Schmidt-Rottluff, as it did for his "Brücke" colleagues, but becaem established as an independent genre alongside painting, graphic art, and sculpting. Although deliberately self-taught, Schmidt-Rottluff nevertheless owned professional silversmith tools and always had a small selection of works for sale. Likewise, his most dedicated advocate, the art historian Rosa Schapire, had a stock she gave to to Hamburg collectors. The lawyer's wives Luise Schiefler and Martha Rauert in Hamburg, as well as Hedda Peters in Leipzig were in possession of collections of considerable size.
Dr. Katja Schneider



497
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Armband mit Bergkristall (Silbernes Doppelarmband mit Bergkristall), 1920.
Silver, cut, chiselled, chased. Mountain crysta...
Estimate:
€ 6,000 / $ 6,420
Sold:
€ 30,000 / $ 32,100

(incl. surcharge)