The Witch  
Circa 1505
Engraving, image: 11,4 x 7,1 cm; sheet: 14,4 x 10,5 cm

PROVENANCE
Freiherr von Maltzan [according auction catalogue Galerie Bassenge, Berlin, 28 May 2025, lot 5070]
Galerie Bassenge, Berlin, 26 May 2000, lot 5168
Private collection
Galerie Bassenge, Berlin, 28 May 2025, lot 5070

Catalogue raisonné:
Bartsch 67, Meder 68 Ia/b (of II), Schoch, Mende, Scherbaum 28 Ia/b (of II).

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Hanni, Hinterbrühl
1925
Oil on canvas, 41,2 x 29,4 cm

Please contact me for the price

PROVENANCE
The artist, until 1996
Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Trust, London
from whom acquired in 2010 through Galerie St. Etienne, New York, by a private collector

EXHIBITED
London, Goethe-Institut, Marie-Louise Motesiczky. Paintings Vienna 1925 - London 1985, 1985, no. 1, illus. p. 65.
Manchester, Manchester City Art Galleries, Marie-Louise Motesiczky. Paintings 1925-93, 1994, no. 1.
New York, Galerie St. Etienne, Marie-Louise Motesiczky, Paradise Lost & Found, October 12, 2010 to December 30, 2010, no no.
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, „Städel-Women“! Women Artists between Frankfurt and Paris around 1900, Frankfurt am Main 2024, cat. no. 75, illus. p. 134 .

LITERATURE
Rilana Vorderwülbecke, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, or how to re-establish a late artist in the art market, London 1999, p. 31, illus. p. 65.
Elena López Calatayud, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky. Technique and Materials, diploma thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, London 2005, p. 22, illus. n.p.
Jill Lloyd, The Undiscovered Expressionist. A Life of Marie-Louise Von Motesiczky, New Haven, Conn. 2006, pp. 36, 39, illus. p. 39.
Ines Schlenker, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky 1906-1996, A catalogue raisonné of the paintings, Manchester/New York, 2010, p. 86, no. 8, illus.

Marie-Louise von Motesiczky (1906 Vienna – London 1996) is one of the most interesting Austrian painters of the twentieth century. Her great artistic talent was discovered by Max Beckmann who encouraged her to become a painter. When the Nazis came to power her stella career came to an abrupt end.

Marie-Louise von Motesiczky was from a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family that among many others was friends with Johannes Brahms, Johannes Strauss, Hendrik Ibsen, Franz von Brentano, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Sigmund Freud and Oskar Kokoschka.

After studying painting in Vienna, The Hague, Paris and Berlin, she became Beckmann's master student at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main in 1927/28. In the following years until the rise of the Nazis she created a number of masterpieces which today are in museums like the Albertina, Vienna, the Tate, London, or the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

After Austria's „Anschluss“ in 1938 Marie-Louise's hasty escape safed her life. Her brother Karl, who refused to leave his homecountry, was killed at Auschwitz. Marie-Louise von Motesiczky fled together with her mother to the Netherlands and soonafter to England where they settled in Hampstead, London. There she met Oskar Kokoschka again and made acquaintance with the writer Elias Canetti. The latter became a friend, lover and companion for over three decades. Canetti dedicated a collection of aphorisms to 'Marie-Louise' and she painted a portrait of him which today is in the National Portrait Gallery. In 1943, Motesiczky joined the Artists’ International Association and took part in several of their exhibitions. The following year, Motesiczky’s first solo exhibition in London took place at the Czechoslovak Institute. Two solo exhibitions in The Hague and Amsterdam in 1952 were followed two years later by one at the Städtische Galerie in Munich and one at the Beaux Arts Gallery in London in 1960. The first success in her native country came in 1966 when the Wiener Secession staged a large solo exhibition which subsequently traveled to Linz, Bremen and Munich.

The artistic breakthrough in the United Kingdom came with the major solo exhibition at the Goethe-Institut in London in 1985 which achieved enormous critical acclaim. By the time the Österreichische Galerie im Belvedere in Vienna held a retrospective exhibition of Motesiczky’s work in 1994 the artist had already established her reputation as one of the most important female Austrian painters of the twentieth century.

Two women waking up - Deux femmes au réveil

1959

Linocut in light caramel, dark brown and black on „Vélin d'Arches“-paper

Image: 53 x 64 cm, sheet: 62 x 75 cm

Signed below right in pencil: Picasso

An artist's proof apart from the numbered edition of 50

With full margins

Catalogue raisonné: Bloch 925; Baer 1249 II Bb

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Self-Portrait with Saskia
1636
Etching on laid paper, 12 x 11 cm

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Catalogue raisonné:
The New Hollstein (Hinterding/Rutgers) 158/II (v. IV);
White/Boon 19/II (v. III)

This small yet important etching shows Rembrandt with his wife, Saskia van Uylenburgh. While there are numerous self-portraits in art history, double self-portraits with an artist’s spouse are rare. This particular work is one of the very few where an artist explicitly portrays himself working alongside his wife, highlighting Saskia’s importance to Rembrandt’s artistic endeavors. The depiction exudes a profound intimacy between the couple.
Contemporary viewers were captivated by Rembrandt’s large, feathered hat and fur doublet—garments that had long fallen out of fashion. Such old-fashioned attire is characteristic of Rembrandt’s self-portraits, though his intentions behind this choice remain unclear.
This charming marital portrait beautifully embodies the Dutch motto “Liefde baart kunst” (“Love produces art”), a prevalent theme in 16th and 17th-century literature.

Portrait of a dwarf (Karl Mader), 1928
Oil on canvas, 63,5 x 50 cm

• one of the artist's masterpieces
• from her best period
• the last painting of this importance still in private hands
• captures the essential nature of the sitter

PROVENANCE
The artist, until 1996
Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Trust, London
from whom acquired in 2010 through Galerie St. Etienne, New York, by a private collector
from whom acquired in 2019 through Fischer Kunsthandel, Berlin, by a private collector

PRICE
Please contact me

EXHIBITION
Vienna, Austria, Wiener Secession, Marie-Louise Motesiczky, 1966, no. 4, illus.
Linz, Austria, Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz, Marie-Louise Motesiczky, 1966, no. 4, illus.
Munich, Germany, Galerie Günther Franke, Marie-Louise Motesiczky, 1967, no. 4, illus.
Bremen, Germany, Kunsthalle Bremen, Marie-Louise Motesiczky, 1968, no. 4, illus.
London, United Kingdom, Goethe-Institut, Marie-Louise Motesiczky. Paintings Vienna 1925 - London 1985, 1985, no. 11, illus. p. 67
Cambridge, United Kingdom, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Marie-Louise Motesiczky. Paintings Vienna 1925 - London 1985, 1986, The Fitzwilliam Museum, no. 11, illus. p. 67
Dublin, Ireland, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Marie-Louise Motesiczky with 'Figurative Image', 1988, no. 3
Vienna, Austria, Österreichische Galerie, Oberes Belvedere, Marie-Louise Motesiczky, 1994, no. 7, illus.
Manchester, United Kingdom, Manchester City Art Galleries, Marie-Louise Motesiczky. Paintings 1925-93, 1994, , no. 6
Vienna, Austria, Kunstforum Bank Austria, Neue Sachlichkeit, 1995, no. 47, p. 308, illus.
Vienna, Austria, Kunstforum, Jahrhundert der Frauen. Vom Impressionismus zur Gegenwart. Österreich 1870 bis heute, 1999, no. 126, p. 138, illus.
Liverpool, United Kingdom, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky 1906 - 1996. The painter, Tate Liverpool, 2006, no. 13, illus. p. 71
Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Museum Giersch, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, 2006, no. 13, illus. p. 71
Vienna, Austria, Wien Museum, Who is Marie-Louise von Motesiczky? Malerin zwischen Wien und London, 2007, no. 13, illus. p. 71
Passau, Germany, Museum Moderner Kunst, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky. Eine Retrospektive, 2007, no. 13, illus. p. 71
Southampton, United Kingdom, City Art Gallery, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, 2007, no. 13, illus. p. 71

LITERATURE
Elisabeth Freundlich, "Trotz alledem ein guter Ort". 'Die Wiener Secession stellt Bilder von Marie-Louise Motesiczky aus' , Mannheimer Morgen, 25 May 1966, n.p.
Grete Helfgott, 'Bilder von Menschen und Schicksalen', Arbeiter-Zeitung (Vienna) 13 May 1966, n.p., illus.
Johann Muschik, 'Auf Stippvisite in Wien. Marie-Louise Motesiczky zeigt Bilder aus 40 Schaffensjahren', Neues Österreich, 22 May 1966, n.p.
Claus Pack, 'Jubiläum und Besuch' , Die Furche, vol. 22, no. 20, 14 May 1966, n.p.
Benno Reifenberg, 'Marie-Louise Motesiczky', in Marie-Louise Motesiczky, exh. cat. Wiener Secession, Vienna1966, n.p.; also published in exh. cats. Linz 1966, Munich 1967, Bremen 1968 all n.p.; repr. in Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, exh. cat. Österreichische Galerie, Oberes Belvedere, Vienna 1994, p. 11
Hilde Spiel, 'Die Malerin Marie-Louise Motesiczky. Eine Ausstellung in der Wiener Secession' , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 19 May 1966, n.p.
Harald Sterk, 'Das Zwischenspiel der Neuen Galerie' , Die Zukunft, no. 11, 1966, p. 25
Larry Berryman, 'Marie-Louise von Motesiczky', Arts Review, 6 December 1985, p. 628
William Feaver, 'Paintings by Marie-Louise von Motesiczky', The Observer, 7 December 1985, n.p.
Hilary Pyle, 'A strong show of works by artists with faith in images', Cork Examiner, 16 December 1988, n.p.
Peter Black, Introduction to Marie-Louise von Motesiczky. Paintings 1925-93, exh. cat. Manchester City Art Galleries, Manchester 1994, p. 6
Jan Tabor, 'Ist es oder ist es nicht? Das Wiener Kunstforum zeigt einen Überblick der Neuen Sachlichkeit in Österreich', Süddeutsche Zeitung, 10/11 June 1995, n.p.
Peter Black, 'Marie-Louise von Motesiczky', Dictionary of Women Artists, ed. Delia Gaze, London/Chicago 1997, p. 992
Laura Philips, 'Hidden in Hampstead'. The life and work of Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, The Jewish Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 4 (184), 2001/2, p. 30
Eva Michel, 'Marie-Louise von Motesiczky 1906-1996. Eine österreichische Schülerin von Max Beckmann', diploma thesis, University of Vienna, 2003, p. 37, illus 43
Elena López Calatayud, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky. Technique and Materials, diploma thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2005, pp. 25, 30-32
Peter Black, 'Portrait Power', The Spectator, 20 May 2006, p. 57
Birgit Sander, 'Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, Max Beckmann and Frankfurt, in Marie-Louise von Motesiczky 1906-1996, exh. cat. Tate Liverpool/Museum Giersch, Frankfurt am Main/Wien Museum, Vienna/Southampton City Art Gallery, 2006, pp. 122 f.
Ines Schlenker, catalogue entry, in Marie-Louise von Motesiczky 1906-1996, exh. cat. Tate Liverpool/Museum Giersch, Frankfurt am Main/Wien Museum, Vienna/Southampton City Art Gallery, 2006, p. 70
Judith von Sternburg, 'Die Tochter. Das Museum Giersch gibt Gelegenheit, die Malerin Marie-Louise von Motesiczky zu entdecken', Frankfurter Rundschau, 29 September 2006, n.p.
Jill Lloyd, The Undiscovered Expressionist. A Life of Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, New Haven/London, 2007, p. 67
Eva Michel, 'Ein Leben in Bildern. Marie-Louise von Motesiczky zum 100. Geburtstag', Parnass, vol. 27, 2007, pp. 117 f.
Ines Schlenker, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky 1906-1996, A catalogue raisonné of the paintings, Manchester/New York, 2010, pp. 57, 107, no. 22, illus.

This magnificent portrait is one of the most powerful works in Motesiczky's entire oeuvre. Traditionally called 'dwarf' the sitter can very probably be identified as Karl Mader (Ines Schlenker, 2010, no. 22). He lived in Hinterbrühl, a village south-west of Vienna, where the Motesiczky family spent their summers. Locals remember Karl Mader's small, somewhat deformed stature and speech difficulties.
Motesiczky's half-length portrait does not simply show a dwarf but a self-conscious man who at the same time very attentively and sceptically inspects the viewer. His straight, almost majestic pose expresses proudness and the ambition to make himself appear taller. His rigorous face with the penetrating glance also shows aggressiveness that seems to serve the handicapped sitter as a protection from disrespect and ridicule.

"In her pictures of friends and strangers, of men and women, the spectator is drawn into an exciting dialogue with each model as he comes along. The dialogue (…) leads us far beyond the figure who momentarily confronts us. With a brush that moves cautiously and yet with decision the artist works her way into the essential nature of her partner. Her delicate human sensibility and her feeling for all the modulations and vacillations both of character and colour, her peculiar gift for gentle circumlocution and for ironically sharp expressions and shapes, permit her to abandon all that is conventional in both pose and facial expression. (...) the whole gamut of human possibilities opens up before the eyes of this patient observer and there emerges in each case a complete human being" (Günther Busch, in exh. cat. London 1985, pp. 9, 10).

Marie-Louise von Motesiczky was born in Vienna on 24 October 1906. Her father Edmund, a talented amateur cellist who played with Brahms, died when Motesiczky was only three. Her mother Henriette came from an extremely wealthy and cultured Jewish family whose relations included many distinguished names from the social and intellectual life of Vienna, among them the philosopher Franz von Brentano and Robert von Lieben, the inventor of the amplifying valve. The family also made an impact on the origin of psychoanalysis, Motesiczky’s grandmother Anna von Lieben being one of Sigmund Freud’s early patients.

At 13, Motesiczky left school and subsequently attended art classes in Vienna, The Hague, Frankfurt, Paris and Berlin. In 1927/8, she was invited by Max Beckmann to join his master class at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. Beckmann had been introduced to the Motesiczky family in 1920. Beckmann left a strong and lasting impression on Motesiczky both as a person and an artist and was to become a life-long friend and influence. Motesiczky spent a decade quietly developing her artistic skills, exhibiting only once, in 1933, with the Hagenbund. In the wake of the 'Anschluss' in 1938, she abruptly had to flee from Austria with her mother. Motesiczky’s brother Karl, born in 1904, refused to leave and used the family residence in Hinterbrühl near Vienna to shelter Jewish friends. In 1943 he was sent to Auschwitz where he died shortly afterwards.

With her mother, Motesiczky went to Holland where she had her first solo exhibition in 1939. Shortly afterwards they left for England and, after a brief stay in London, settled in Amersham. It was here that Motesiczky met the writer Elias Canetti who became a friend, lover and companion for the next three decades. In 1943, Motesiczky joined the Artists’ International Association and took part in several of their exhibitions. The following year, Motesiczky’s first solo exhibition in London took place at the Czechoslovak Institute. She also renewed her acquaintance with Oskar Kokoschka who had been a friend of the family in Vienna.

After the war, Motesiczky moved to London. Two solo exhibitions in The Hague and Amsterdam in 1952 were followed two years later by one at the Städtische Galerie in Munich and one at the Beaux Arts Gallery in London in 1960. The first success in her native country came in 1966 when the Wiener Secession staged a large solo exhibition which subsequently traveled to Linz, Bremen and Munich.

The artistic breakthrough in the United Kingdom came with the major solo exhibition at the Goethe-Institut in London in 1985 which achieved enormous critical acclaim. By the time the Österreichische Galerie im Belvedere in Vienna held a retrospective exhibition of Motesiczky’s work in 1994 the artist had already established her reputation as an important Austrian painter of the twentieth century.

Several paintings by Motesiczky are in public collections, for example in the Albertina, Vienna, the Tate and the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art, Amsterdam  and the Städel Museum, Frankfurt. As Motesiczky refused to sell any of her paintings she kept them in her own house until she died in London on 10 June 1996. Today the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust keeps the main body of her work.

Le Repos du sculpteur IV
from the "Suite Vollard"
4 April 1933

Etching on „Vergé de Montval“ with watermark „Vollard“, Plate: 19,4 x 26,7 cm  
Bloch 174; Baer 327/B.d.
Edition of 260

PROVENANCE:
Ambroise Vollard, Saint-Denis, 1865-1939, Versailles
His estate
Henri Marie Petiet, Saint-Prix, Seine-et-Oise, 1894-1980
His estate (with the dry stamp, Lugt 5462)

PRICE: upon request

Still-life with laurel and Dante's Divine Comedy, 1928
Oil on panel, 69,9 × 49,7 cm
Signed upper right: Seewald
Signed, titled and dated in red chalk on the reverse:
Seewald „Stilleben mit Lorbeer“ 1928

• exemplary still-life of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement
• probably the best surviving work of the artist
• one of the very rare works as the artist burnt 150 of his paintings
• from the collection of August Sander, one of the most important photographers of the early twentieth century

PROVENANCE
August Sander, Cologne
Thence by descent until 2021
Grisebach, Berlin, Sander Collection, 10 June 2021, lot 658

PRICE
Please contact me

EXHIBITION
Richard Seewald 85 Jahre. Bilder, Zeichnungen, Graphik 1912-1973. Munich, Galerie Wolfgang Ketterer, 1973/74, cat. no. 12, ill.
Zeitgenossen. August Sander und die Kunstszene der 20er Jahre im Rheinland. Cologne, Josef-Haubrich-Kunsthalle and Kiel, Kunsthalle, 2000, cat. no. 487, ill. p. 121
Los progresistas de Colonia. August Sander y su círculo de amigos. 1920-1933. Valladolid, Museo de Pasión, Sala Municipal de Exposiciones, 2012/13, unnumbered, ill. p. 61

A note on the provenance:
August Sander (17 November 1876 – 20 April 1964) was the most important German portrait photographer of the early twentieth century. He also built an extraordinary art collection of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objective) paintings.

Richard Seewald, draughtsman, painter and illustrator, was born in Arnswalde on 4 May 1889. In 1909 Seewald began to study architecture at Munich Polytechnic (now Technical University) but soon turned to painting, in which he was self-taught. In 1911 he had his first exhibition at the Galerie Thannhauser in Munich. Seewald was a member of The "New Secession", which was founded in Munich in December that same year, and soon also joined the "Deutscher Künstlerbund". Seewald began to illustrate books such as "Robinson Crusoe", "Penthesilea" and his own first book, "Tiere und Landschaften". At the age of only thirty-five, Seewald was appointed to a teaching position at the Werkschule in Cologne in 1924.
The cultural and political changes that were taking place in Germany made Richard Seewald decide in 1931 to settle at Ronco sopra Ascona in Switzerland, where he joined the artist's group "Der Große Bär" and became a honorary citizen in 1939. A convert to Catholicism by that time, Richard Seewald received commissions for frescoes in churches and other ecclesiastical buildings. Seewald did not return to Germany until 1948 and was not reintegrated in the cultural life of his native country until 1954.
Appointed professor at the Munich Fine Art Academy, Richard Seewald left four years later after differences of opinion with the board of governors. On his wife's death, Richard Seewald burnt about one hundred and fifty of his pictures as well as hundreds of sketches, designs and letters. In the late 1960s Seewald frescoed the arcades of the Munich Hofgarten and designed windows for the Herz-Jesu-Kirche [Church of the Sacred Heart] in Munich-Neuhausen among others. Richard Seewald died in Munich on 29 October 1976.

This is an exemplary work of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement, which was a reaction against Expressionism. Our still-life is carefully composed and balanced in beautiful order. The everyday objects are depicted with calm precision. This is characteristic for the painters of the New Objectivity who intended to make visible the magic of the normal world as it presents itself to us when we really look at it. An edition of Dante's divine commedy which is prominently placed on the chair  points to a meaning beyond the beautifully arranged objects in the present to a fantastic vision of the after-life.

Le Repos du sculpteur et le modèle au masque
from the "Suite Vollard"
27 March 1933

Etching on „Vergé de Montval“ with watermark „Picasso“, Plate: 26,7 x 19,4 cm
Bloch 159; Baer 312/B.d.
Edition of 260

PROVENANCE:
Ambroise Vollard, Saint-Denis, 1865-1939, Versailles
His estate
Henri Marie Petiet, Saint-Prix, Seine-et-Oise, 1894-1980
His estate (with the dry stamp, Lugt 5462)

PRICE: upon request

Woman Bathing Her Feet at a Brook
1658
Etching and drypoint on Japanese paper , 16,2 x 8,2 cm

The New Hollstein (Hinterding/Rutgers) 309/I (of II) White/Boon 200

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A cat with a foolscap
Oil on wood, 16,8 x 22,5 cm
Signed and dated: C Saft […] 16 […]

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Satyr Family
1505
Engraving on paper, 11,5 x 7,2 cm

Schoch/Mende/Scherbaum 44/a-b (of d) Meder 65/a-b (of d)

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