Adolph Menzel

Reinhold Begas, Berlin (from 1898)
Private Collection, South America

Berlin, Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung, 1899
Berlin, Köngliche National-Galerie, Ausstellung von Erken Adolph Menzels, 1905, no. 5428 (lent by Reinhold Begas)

Max Jordan, Das werk Adolf Menzels, 1815-1905: mit einer biographie des künstlers, Munich, 1905, p. 99, illustrated

The following condition report was kindly provided by Alvarez Fine Art Services Inc.: This pencil on paper drawing is in good and stable structural condition without tears, losses or planar distortions. It is mounted, however, from edge-to-edge upon an acidic medium-weight gray board. Visually, the paper appears slightly oxidized from contact with its acidic support, and the surface abraded around the ear of the figure in the upper-left quadrant. This abrasion, upon further examination, is in fact pentimenti (artist change), as Menzel changed the shape of the sitter's ear. Otherwise the medium appears undisturbed.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

After a long and respected career, Menzel battled loneliness in the final decade of his life; although still active and evolving, he felt displaced by a younger generation of artists.  From the mid 1890s, Menzel shunned friends and became increasingly isolated in the daily work at his studio (Claude Keisch and Marie Ursula Reimann-Reyher, Adolph Menzel, 1915-1905, Between Romanticism and Impressionism, exh. cat., New Haven, p. 452). This would inspire some of the most engaging works of his career—powerful drawings well represented by the present Drei Studienköpfe. The artist invited models (often old men and women eager to earn a little money) into his studio daily, and sketched people he observed in Berlin and on his travels. While Menzel had drawn throughout his career, a new focus on heads or half-length portraits of assembled individuals dominated his production until the end of his life. Though recovered from a fall after his eightieth birthday in 1895, his sight remained impaired, and he abandoned oil paint (the last recorded example in 1892) in favor of the graphite pencil. Specifically, according to Paul Meyerheim (a fellow painter and Menzel's good friend and biographer), the artist used a cruder carpenter's pencil as it produced broad yet refined strokes.  The use of this pencil is evident in Drei Studienköpfe, with its gentle and light touch similar to charcoal or chalk.  Additionally, Menzel employed a stump of paper or leather to rub and smear the hardened pencil lines to produce a soft, richly textured effect of various shades of gray and black.  This technique gives a tactile quality to such details as the tones and textures of soft wrinkles under eyes or roughened fingertips.  Menzel continued to observe the people around him as meticulously as he had in his younger years.  The artist was fascinated by the human face and, as he explained, its appearance as "different as it is random" (as quoted in Keisch and Reimann-Rehyer, pp. 132-3, 452).

The viewer is tempted to decode a narrative relationship between the three figures, who seem to observe something outside of the picture space.  In the background, a man holds a pair of binoculars, while an older, bald figure peers through his spectacles with a bemused smile; in the foreground a woman looks upward, holding her fingers to her chin in a gesture of expectancy.  There is a dream-like dissonance to the composition: the three figures' connection to one another is undefined, the faces nearly disembodied, the composition's cut-off margins (similar to a photograph) suggesting elements unseen.  Ultimately, as Marie-Ursula Riemann-Rehyer notes, "these drawings are impressions that have taken on form... a whole silent dialogue between the master and his models with their richness of character" (Keisch and Reimann-Rehyer, p. 452).  

Ironically, given Menzel's misgivings about his place in the art world, the present work was commissioned by the Berlin Akademie as a farewell gift for his friend Reinhold Begas (1831-1911) who retired from teaching in 1898.  Begas was an accomplished sculptor renowned for his naturalistic works, including the colossal statue of Borussia for Berlin's Hall of Glory and the bronze Neptune fountain on the Schlossplatz.  Additionally, Begas executed a number of portrait busts, including his famous 1876 marble of Menzel himself.  On Menzel's eightieth birthday, the Berlin Academy had a medal designed by Begas featuring the artist's likeness (an example of which was sold in these rooms on October 29, 2002, lot 203, fig. 1), and a retrospective exhibition at Berlin's National-Galerie.  The particular popularity of Drei Studienköpfe is suggested by its well known heliograph issued by Meisenbach Riffarth & Co., Berlin (see: Adolph Menzel, Zeichnungen, Druckgraphik unk illustrierte Bücher, exh. cat., Berlin, 1984, no. 349, illustrated).