Best known for his enigmatic masterpiece Die Toteninsel (Isle of the Dead) (fig. 1), Arnold Böcklin was one of the most influential painters of central Europe in the late 19th century. His symbolist interpretation of classical mythology made a great impact on his contemporaries and fascinated a younger generation of artists, including the surrealist painter Giorgio di Chirico.

Towards the end of the 19th century Böcklin became one of a diverse group of painters across Europe who turned their attention to sculpture. Their mission was to infuse the medium with colour, an unorthodox approach which unleashed new possibilities in sculpture. The most vocal of these painters was Jean-Léon Gérôme who made the colouration of sculpture something of a cause célèbre by titling one of his paintings Sculpturae vitam insufflat pictura (Painting breathes life into sculpture). Like Gérôme, Böcklin was fascinated with the antique and the recent discovery, proved by Gottfried Semper and Georg Treu, that ancient marbles had been polychromed, a fact which Böcklin claimed always to have known. Closer to his own circle were the painters Max Klinger and Fernand Khnopff, who also created polychromed sculptures.

Böcklin's extraordinary Medusenschild reflects the artist's interest in antique and polychromed sculpture, while interpreting the myth in an intensely symbolist mode. Medusa was a theme that Böcklin had explored through a series of paintings, one of which (circa 1878) was formerly in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg (fig. 2). This apotropaic image of the living, severed head surrounded by serpents was highly suited to a symbolist treatment as it plays on both fear and attraction, the real and the imaginary. Choosing the shape of an actual shield, and utilising the two- and three-dimensionality of painting and sculpture, Böcklin created a conjurer's illusion.

In the execution of his works that combined sculpture and painting, Böcklin collaborated with his son-in-law, the sculptor Peter Bruckmann (1851-1926). Schmid (op. cit.) proposed that in the case of the Medusa, Bruckmann modelled the shield and Böcklin added the colour, although the two artists are known also to have exchanged these roles (Blühm, op. cit.). It has also been argued that Böcklin's pupil, Hans Sandreuter (1850-1901) may have assisted in the execution of sculptures such as the Medusa (Papet, op. cit.)

Modelled in 1885, the first version of the Medusenschild was broken on its return from the polychrome sculpture exhibition at the Nationalgalerie, Berlin later that year. A second version, now in the Kunstmuseum Basel (inv. no. P 5), was created in 1887, and a number of casts were made. Three surviving versions were sold at Sotheby's London respectively in December 2003 (GBP 110,880), in June 2006, and in November 2007. The latter is now in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay, Paris and was illustrated on the cover of the museum's 2009 exhibition, Masques de Carpeaux à Picasso.

The present, rediscovered relief is the only version of the Medusa to have appeared at auction since 2007, having remained in private hands. Its first owner belonged to a drinking club in Munich, whose members included Böcklin and Bruckmann, alongside other prominent artists. In this convivial setting, and no doubt intoxicated, Böcklin is said to have promised a version of the Medusa to each of his drinking friends.

RELATED LITERATURE

H. A. Schmid, Verzeichnis der Werke Arnold Böcklins, Munich, 1903, no. 6; Arnold Böcklin 1827-1901, exh. cat. Kunstmuseum Basel, 1977, p. 247, no. P 3; A. Blühm, The Colour of Sculpture: 1840 - 1910, exh. cat., Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam and Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, 1996, pp. 134-135; E. Papet (ed.), Masques de Carpeaux à Picasso, exh. cat. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 2009, pp. 58-59, no. 33