Adolph von Menzel

Study of a Woman's Right Hand

Estimate

12,000 - 18,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property From The Louis-Dreyfus Family Collections

Adolph von Menzel

(Breslau 1815 - 1905 Berlin)

Study of a Woman's Right Hand

Pastel and charcoal on brown paper;

inscribed by Guido Josef Kern in brown ink on the backing board: Dieses Handstudie gehört zur Gruppe des farbigen / Studien nach männlichen und weiblichen Händen / die en dem von Hugo von Tschudi, Schwedeler- Meyer / und mir herausgegebenes Menzel - Werk (Bruckmann / München 1905) abgebildet sind. Beim Erscheinen des / Werkes war die vorliegende Studie noch nicht bekannt. / Sie ist einer der besten dieser Gattung. Enstanden ist / die Studie nach meiner Ansicht sie das Zeit von 1860-1870. / (Auf Wunsch niedergeschreiben). Profes. G. J. Kern / Berlin, d. 10. Mai 1928

176 by 243 mm; 7 by 9 ⅝ in.

Executed c.1850

Guido Josef Kern, Berlin, by 1928,

his wife, Franziska Kern, Berlin, in 1929;

Alexander Prentzel, Berlin,

his anonymous sale, Berlin, Hans W. Lange, 8 May 1942, lot 90;

Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia;

sale, Berlin, Villa Grisebach, 26 May 2006, lot 3;

William Louis-Dreyfus, Mount Kisco, New York (acquired from the above in 2006),

The Louis-Dreyfus Family Collections (by descent from the above in 2016)

Berlin, Verein Berliner Künstler, Hundert Jahre Berliner Kunst, 1929, no. 995;

Munich, Galerie Caspari, Adolph von Menzel 1815-1905: Ölgemälde, Gouachen, Pastelle, Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, 1932, no. 26;

Hamburg, Le Claire Kunst, ‘A World caught with the eye and held by the pencil’: Drawings by Adolph Menzel, 2019, Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, no. 9

Though this elegant and finely preserved pastel study by Menzel remains unconnected to any finished work by the artist, it has been dated on stylistic grounds to circa 1850 by Marie Ursula Riemann-Reyher. As noted by Susanne von Falkenhausen, "Menzel used pastels for sketches or studies during the 1840s and 1850s, but mostly restricted himself to a limited range of colors. Later, the carpenter's pencil replaced pastels for such work."¹

The first recorded owner of this pastel sketch was the German art historian, curator and artist Guido Josef Kern (1878-1953), who was one of the authors of the monumental catalogue of Menzel's paintings, watercolors, gouaches and pastels, published in 1905. Kern's extensive inscription on the old backing board reads: "This hand study belongs to the group of colored studies of male and female hands, which are reproduced in the Menzel-Catalogue (Bruckmann Munich 1905) edited by Hugo von Tschudi, Schwedeler-Meyer and myself. At the time of publication of the work, the present study was not yet known. This is one of the best of this type. The study was produced, in my opinion, in the period 1860-1870. (Written down on request). Professor G. J. Kern. Berlin, May 10, 1928."

1.Prints and Drawings by Adolph Menzel: A Selection from the collections of the museums of West Berlin, exhib. cat., Cambridge, The Fitzwilliam Museum, 1984, p.65