Christ on the cross

Circa 1520-1530

Oil on oak panel, 124 x 88,5 cm.

PROVENANCE
Christie's, London [Sir Miles Stapleton and other collections], 26 March 1926, lot 126 (as Barend van Orley), sold as a triptych, the wings with a donor and his family by a later  hand;  
There acquired by Frank T. Sabin, London, 1926;
Swen Boström, Stockholm, acquired in 1939 in London (without the later wings), until ca. 1954;
Auktionshaus Arnold, Frankfurt, 13 December 2008, lot 749;
There acquired by a private collection, Europe

LITERATURE
Max J. Friedländer, Die Altniederländische Malerei, vol. XI, Die Antwerpener Manieristen, Adriaen Ysenbrant, Berlin 1934, p. 133, no. 157 (as Adriaen Ysenbrant).
Max J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish painting, vol. XI, The Antwerp Mannersists, Adrian Ysenbrant, Leyden and Brussels 1974 (reprint), p. 84, no. 157, illustr. plate 124 (as Adriaen Ysenbrant).

Documented in the RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis as an fully autograph work by Adriaen Isenbrant: https://rkd.nl/images/44983.

On the basis of a high-resolution digital image, Dr Till-Holger Borchert, to whom I am grateful, has proposed an attribution to the Workshop of Isenbrant, dating the panel to after 1530.

Christ is shown on the Cross at the centre of the composition. Above the crossbeam is the titulus inscribed INRI (Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum; "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews"). To his left stands the mourning Virgin Mary, her gaze lowered and her hands clasped in prayer; to his right is Saint John the Evangelist with his hands crossed over his chest. They are the only persons who remain beside the dead Christ. All the others have already departed and are making their way down the path from Mount Calvary. The Crucifixion is set against a panoramic landscape with dramatic rock formations, in which the artist has carefully rendered the architecture of the distant city of Jerusalem. In keeping with the Gospel accounts, the sky has darkened at the moment of Christ's death.
The composition is traditional in design and remarkable for its stillness. This may be explained by the panel's intended function as an image of devotion. It was conceived as an aid to meditation, inviting the faithful to contemplate Christ's sacrifice and the redemption won through his death on the Cross.
Isenbrant settled in Bruges in 1510 and was admitted as a Free Master in the Guild of Saint Luke in the same year. He appears to have enjoyed a long and successful career, spanning four decades until his death in 1551, by which time he had become a prominent and prosperous citizen. He directed a busy workshop that produced paintings for both the local market and the export trade, and he was elected Dean of the Guild of Saint Luke on nine occasions between 1516 and 1548, serving twice as its Governor, in 1526–27 and 1537–38.
Despite this, not a single signed or securely documented work by Isenbrant survives, and his oeuvre has therefore had to be reconstructed by art historians, most notably by Max J. Friedländer, whose studies in the 1930s defined his artistic personality and greatly expanded the corpus of works attributed to him. Friedländer himself employed the name Isenbrant as a designation for a larger body of paintings. Accordingly, works attributed to Isenbrant, including the present panel, are best understood as belonging to the broader "Isenbrant Group." The dominant stylistic influence on Isenbrant's work was undoubtedly that of his celebrated fellow townsman Gerard David (c. 1460–1523), the leading painter in Bruges at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It has often been suggested that Isenbrant may have trained with David or at least worked in his workshop, from whom he appears to have acquired his brilliant sense of colour.

Dalmatian, 1906
Oil on canvas, 56 x 87 cm
Monogramed and dated upper left: RM/06

• one of the artist's masterpieces
• brilliant brushwork
• psycholigically profound and life-like portrait of a dog
• never offered on the art market before

PROVENANCE
Eduard Staffel, Witzenhausen (a friend of the artist)
thence by descent
Private collection, Germany

PRICE
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LITERATURE
Franz Hermann Meißner, Das Werk Richard Müllers, Dresden 1921, pp. 134-136, plate 43.
Corinna Wodarz, Symbol und Eros. Die Bildwelten Richard Müllers (1874–1954) mit dem Katalog des Gesamtwerks [= calatalogue raisonné], Göttinger Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte, vol 1, Göttingen 2002, no. M 1906.03.

This compelling portrait of a Dalmatian by Richard Müller is one of the artist's best paintings. It combines exceptional technical refinement with profound observational sensitivity, bringing the dog vividly to life as an individual rather than merely as a representative of its breed. The painting’s significance is underscored by its selection as one of the very few works reproduced as a full-page colour plate in the landmark 1921 publication devoted to Müller’s oeuvre.
Richard Müller (1874–1954) was one of the most distinctive German painters, draftsmen, and printmakers of the early twentieth century. At the age of fourteen he entered the drawing school of the Royal Saxon Porcelain Manufactory in Meissen. In 1890, although younger than the prescribed admission age, he was accepted into the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. His outstanding talent soon brought him early recognition. Following the encouragement of Max Klinger, he turned to printmaking and, in 1897, was awarded the prestigious Grand Prix de Rome for an etching. Shortly afterwards, he received a major gold medal for one of his paintings, establishing his reputation as one of Dresden’s leading artists.
In 1900 Müller was appointed to the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, where he taught for more than three decades and influenced generations of artists, among them George Grosz and Otto Dix. Renowned for his extraordinary technical mastery, his paintings, drawings and prints combine meticulous observation of nature with a highly imaginative, often dreamlike symbolism that occupies a unique place in German art.
In 1933 Müller became rector of the Dresden Academy and joined the Nazi Party. In the same year Otto Dix was dismissed from the Academy by order of the Saxon Ministry of the Interior, a decision Müller, as rector, was required to implement. In 1935 Müller himself was removed from office by the Nazi authorities, dismissed from the Academy, and expelled from the Nazi party following internal conflicts and allegations of “subversive tendencies” in his art. Nevertheless, several of his works were subsequently shown at the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellungen (Great German Art Exhibitions) in Munich and he was included in the 1944 Gottbegnadeten-Liste.
After the Second World War Müller remained in Dresden. His reputation in the German Democratic Republic suffered because of his complex relationship with the National Socialist regime, and for a long time his artistic achievement received only limited public attention. A renewed institutional reassessment began in the later twentieth century and continued into the 21st century, including the exhibition “Die Schöne und das Biest. Richard Müller & Mel Ramos & Wolfgang Joop” at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig in 2013–14. In recent years, Richard Müller’s work has received increasing recognition. He stands among the most unusual, fascinating, and controversial artistic personalities in twentieth-century German painting. His oeuvre resists easy categorisation, bringing together Old Masterly craftsmanship, the incisive precision of Neue Sachlichkeit and elements of Symbolism.

The penitent Mary Magdalene

Circa 1645

Oil on canvas, 118,5 x 96,5 cm.

Private European Collection

PRICE
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PROVENANCE
Conte Giovanni Giacomo Panici, who in 1641 was the governor of Cento; acquired from the artist on 22 April 1645 (see: Malvasia, p. 266 and Ghelfi, p. 125, No. 329);
Giovanni Battista Sommariva (1762-1826), Paris;
Princely Collections of the Hohenzollern-Hechingen, first documented in 1858 in the collection of Prince Friedrich Wilhelm Konstantin von Hohenzollern (1801-1869);
his sale, through the art dealer Dr. Förster, Munich, 1886;
there acquired by Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern (1835-1905);
by descent to Prince Wilhelm von Hohenzollern (1864-1927);
by whom sold between 1896 and 1918;
Count Danilo de Micheli (1910-1996), Villa de Micheli, Lastra a Signa, by 1975;
Private Collection, Switzerland, at least by 1981;
by whom sold Koller Zurich, 23 September 2011, lot 3073 (CHF 288,000);
There acquired by Marco Pesarese Fine Art, Munich;
From whom acquired by a Private Collection, Europe.

LITERATURE
Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice, Bologna 1841, p. 266.
Karl Theodor Zingler and Wilhelm Friedrich Laur, Die Bau- und Kunst-Denkmaeler in den Hohenzollern'schen Landen, Stuttgart 1896, p. 281, no 229 „Büssende Magdalena, von Guercino“.
Walter Kaufhold, Fürstenhaus und Kunstbesitz, Hundert Jahre Fürstlich Hohenzollernsches Museum, Zweiter Teil: Der weitere Ausbau des Museums Sein Verkauf und "Wiederaufbau, in: Zeitschrift für hohenzollerische Geschichte, ed. Hohenzollerischer Geschichtsverein, 4 (91).1968, p. 93 „Magdalena von Quercino (sic)“.
Barbara Ghelfi, Il libro dei conti del Guercino, 1629-1666, Bologna 1997, p. 125, no. 329.
Nicholas Turner, 'Variations on a Theme: Three Newly Discovered Half-lenghts of the Penitent Magdalene by Guercino from his Mature Period and Some Related Drawings', in: U. Roman d'Elia, ed., Rethinking Renaissance Drawings: Essays in Honour of David McTavish (Montral and Kingston, 2015), p. 253, fig. 17.6.
Nicholas Turner, The Paintings of Guercino, A Revised and Expanded Catalogue raisonné, Rome 2017, no. 312 p. 602, pp. 208-210, fig. 170.

The painting is in superb condition.

After inspection of the original Sir Denis Mahon and Nicholas Turner have confirmed the attribution. Based on a high-resolution image David M. Stone has independently confirmed the attribution to Guercino.

„The main signature motifs of Guercino's Magdalen for Conte Panici are the saint's hands (crossed at the wrists, held flat over her breasts, and keeping in place some stray locks of her hair), the extraordinary delicate pallor of her flesh, and the fine tear that trickels down her left cheek. The saint's golden-brown hair, spread a little sparsely over her front and back, is complemented if not eclipsed by her magnificent bluish-purple silk drapery, which falls in rippling folds and clings with almost animated force to her body and to some of the rocks. Rhyming with the saint's curling hair are the tangled roots of the shrubs growing at the top of the shadowy bank behind her. The darkness of this slope provides a forceful contrast to the standing crucifix that catches the light in the left foreground, as well as giving life to the soft, palpable forms of the saint's pale flesh“.
Nicholas Turner, 2015, p. 253.

Sinner or Saint?
Mary Magdalene has long been one of Christianity’s most beloved saints and a frequent subject in art. Her image vacillated between the first witness to the resurrection, a model of penitence, and an excuse for depicting an attractive female nude. Guercino’s late masterpiece brings all these aspects together. The painting shows Magdalene as simultaneously sensuous, devotional, and spiritually charged.
In the Gospels Mark and Luke record that Jesus cast seven demons out of Mary Magdalene. She appears at the cross and is the first to encounter the risen Christ at the empty tomb (John 20:11–18). The unnamed “sinful woman” who anoints Jesus in Luke 7 is not explicitly identified as Mary Magdalene. That conflation is a later tradition, promoted by Pope Gregory I in the sixth century. Once cast as both sinner and saint, her penitence gained wide spiritual significance.
Post-biblical accounts portray her as having lived in sexual sin for years before her conversion. She then repented, retired to the wilderness, and spent her days in prayer and meditation. During the 16th and 17th centuries she became a symbol of the Sacrament of Penance. Yet she also came to stand as a strong, independent woman who became a symbol of hope for all sinners.
The detail of the saint’s tears has deeper meaning. In the Bible, Magdalene - or the “sinful woman” - is associated with the gift of tears. She washes Jesus’ feet with them (Luke 7:38) and is granted the first glimpse of the risen Christ through them (John 20:11–18). In devotional reading those tears wash away her sins. In Guercino’s painting they signify cleansing and the promise of salvation. Like Mary Magdalene, any sinner who truly repents may find redemption.

Four naked women - The four witches, 1497
Engraving on laid paper with watermark of a bear (Meder watermark 92)
Image size: 19,2 x 13,6 cm; paper size: 20 x 14,5 cm
In very good condition, with borderline, platemark and small margins.

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Switzerland;
Beurret Bailly Widmer, Basel, 11 March 2026, lot 3

Catalogue raisonné
Meder, 69 probably c/d (of h); Schoch, Mende, Scherbaum 17

The engraving of four naked women and its thematization of lust and transience is one of Albrecht Dürer’s most enigmatic works. Who are these women? Ordinary Nuremberg women in a bath house, witches, whores or goddesses? Are they allegories of the four seasons or the four temperaments? The countless interpretations in art history are as varied as they are unconvincing. The devil and the flames on the left support the traditional reading of the women as witches. A nearly contemporary copy by Nicoletto da Modena, however, identifies the subject as the “Judgement of Paris.” But why do a skull and bone lie on the floor? Why do the women stand on different levels of the room? What are they doing with their largely concealed hands? And what is the meaning of the mysterious ball hanging from the ceiling with the as yet undeciphered inscription OGH? The mysterious ball also bears the date 1497. Thus this fascinating copperplate is the first dated graphic work by Albrecht Dürer.
Whatever the subject may be, artistically the depiction of female nudes in art north of the Alps was revolutionary. Perhaps Dürer was simply seeking a pretext of an allegorical, mythological or literary nature in order to devote himself to the real subject, the depiction of the naked female body.

Desco da parto: Two boys at play
tempera and oil on panel, 63.5 cm. diameter

Provenance
Stefan von Auspitz collection, Vienna, by 1910;
Adolf von Beckerath, Berlin;
Anonymous sale, Berlin, Rudolph Lepke, 23-26 May 1916, lot 311 (as Manner of Piero della Francesca);
Emil Weinberger, Vienna;
His sale, Vienna, C.J. Wawra & Glückselig, 22-24 October 1929, lot 451 (as Central Italian (Sienese) School, c. 1480);
Kurt Walter Bachstitz, The Hague, by 1938;
Sold after his death by his wife Lilli Bachstitz, Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 27 March 1952, lot 11 (as Domenico di Michelino);
With The Arcade Gallery, London, by 1953.
Where acquired by Wildenstein & Co., New York, 1953;
By whom anonymously sold, New York, Christie's, 25 January 2012, lot 3, for $482,500;
Where acquired by Fabrizio Moretti, London;
By whom sold, Sotheby's, New York, 19 December 2019, lot 8, for $262,500;
Where acquired by a European private collection.

Literature
C. Brandi, Quattrocentisti senesi, Milan 1949, p. 210 (as Sienese School);
L. Collobi Ragghianti, "Domenico di Michelino," in La Critica d'Arte, vol. VIII, no. 5, xxxi, January 1950, p. 374, note 22 (as Domenico di Michelino);
E. Callmann, Apollonio di Giovanni, Oxford 1974, pp. 58-59, under no. 14 (without attribution);
E. Callmann, Beyond Nobility. Art for the Private Citizen in the Early Renaissance, exhibition catalogue, Allentown 1980, p. 7, cat. no. 5 (as Florentine School, 1460-80), reproduced fig. II;
C. de Carli, I deschi da parto e la pittura del primo Rinascimento toscano, Turin 1997, pp. 120-121, cat. no. 25 (as Florentine School, c. 1450);
J.M. Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy, New Haven and London 1999, pp. 130-131, reproduced fig. 123;
E. Fahy, L'Archivio storico fotografico di Stefano Bardini: dipinti, disegni, miniature, stampe, Florence 2000, pp. 40 and 190, cat. no. 296, reproduced fig. 296;
C.C. Wilson, "Leo Planiscig and Percy Straus 1929-1939: Collecting and Historiography," in Small Bronzes in the Renaissance, New Haven and London 2001, p. 267, note 31 (as dated 1460 - 1480).

Exhibited
London, Knoedler House, Great Masters of the 14th-18th Century from the Collection of N.V. Bachstitz Gallery, 's-Gravenhage, 1938 - 1939, no. 1 (as Andrea da Firenze);
Allentown, Pennsylvania, Allentown Art Museum, Beyond Nobility. Art for the Private Citizen in the Early Renaissance, September 1980 - January 1981, no. 5 (as Florentine School, 1460-80).

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Minotaure aveugle guidé par une fillette, I, from La Suite Vollard

1934

etching on parchment, image size: 24,7 × 33,8 cm; sheet size: 41 × 53,4 cm

numbered and signed in red ink: 1/3 – Picasso

From the edition of 3

PROVENANCE
Collection Walter Kern, Winterthur/Uttwil.
Thence by descent to a private collection, Switzerland

Catalogue raisonné:
Bloch, 222; Geiser-Baer, 434.XIII.a.

PRICE
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Artists almost never used parchment for prints. It is far more expensive and technically demanding than paper. One of the few exceptions is Rembrandt, who experimented with it in the 1650s. Rembrandt was one of the artists Picasso admired most, and Picasso may have been directly inspired by his seventeenth-century Dutch predecessor.
Picasso used parchment for prints only once: in the deluxe edition of the Suite Vollard. All sheets in that edition were individually numbered and signed by the artist in red ink. Opportunities to see one of the three known examples of these parchment proofs are exceptionally rare.
The mysterious subject is set in an ancient Greek register. Half-man, half-bull, the Minotaur often functions in Picasso’s work as an alter ego, a figure of sheer power, creativity and lust. Here, the Minotaur is different. He is weak, lost, suffering and blind. He helplessly depends on a walking stick and reaches out, feeling around in the emptiness. But there is a little girl with flowers in her arms who is the Minotaur's salvation. She holds his hand and seems to guide him onto the right path. Who is this girl? And who is the young man on the left who is gazing thoughtfully and somewhat reservedly at the Minotaur? Also the two fishermen in the background are looking towards the Minotaur, but with a different, rather amazed, expression.
It is remarkable that Picasso also depicted another, separate scene to the left of the main subject. Although it has been forcefully crossed out, it remains important - Picasso wouldn’t have deliberately left it there otherwise. What does it show? Because the scene is depicted upside down, it is not easy to decipher. In an interior space lit by a window, a fury-like creature seems about to stab a sleeping, possibly winged, woman with a sword. What is the meaning of this disturbing image?
Can the subject perhaps be explained at least partly autobiographically? Around the time when Picasso created this print his secret affair with the much younger Marie-Thérèse Walter took a turning point: she became pregnant while he was still married to his first wife, Olga Koklova. Is the disoriented Minotaur a symbol for Picasso as a man torn between his lover and his wife and family? Is the subject an allegory of the artist before the chasm of an affair that cannot be hidden anymore? Does the scene to the left even allude to the desperate thought of killing his lover? Does it show the fight against his darkest side? Or is there a suggestion of sacrifice here? At any rate, the innocent little girl, whose identity remains a mystery, stops the blind Minotaur and guides him through this deep crisis. Is she an allegory for Picasso's artistic inspiration? Could the adolescent on the left be Picasso's son Paul, who at the time was thirteen years old? Does the Minotaur reach out his hand in search of him? While this print illustrates Picasso’s inner turmoil, there is more to it. It is laden with symbols and allusions, with references to Greek and to Picasso’s own personal mythology, experience and perhaps his nightmares. Like the artist’s hybrid alter ego, the blind Minotaur, it defies any single, rigid interpretation.
“If all the ways I have been along were marked upon a map and joined up in a line, it might represent a minotaur.” Picasso.

Modèle nu et Sculptures, from: La Suite Vollard

1933

etching on parchment, plate size: 38,0 x 29,6 cm

numbered 1/3 and signed Picasso in red ink

from the edition of 3

Catalogue raisonée
Bloch185; Geiser-Baer 344

PROVENANCE
Ambroise Vollard, 1865-1939;
his estate;
Henri Marie Petiet, 1894-1980;
sale Grisebach, Berlin, 7 June 1996, lot 470;
there acquired by a private collection, Berlin;
by descent;
from whom consigned to Auktionshaus Quentin, Berlin, 25 October 2025, lot 160.

Parchment was only rarely used as a printing support. It is considerably more expensive than paper and technically more difficult to print on. One of the few exceptions is Rembrandt, who experimented with it in the 1650s. Rembrandt was among the artists Picasso admired most, and he may well have been directly inspired by his seventeenth-century Dutch predecessor. Picasso used parchment as a printing support only once, for the deluxe edition of the Suite Vollard. Every sheet in that edition was individually numbered and signed by the artist in red ink. Opportunities to see one of the three known parchment impressions are exceptionally rare.

With just a few assured, economical lines, Picasso depicts a nude woman observing a life-size nude sculpture. Shown in profile and wearing a wreath of flowers in her hair, the woman gazes intently—perhaps even sorrowfully—at the face of the sculpture, while placing her left hand on its knee. Picasso has worked the sculpture more extensively, modelling its muscular body with dynamic lines. At first glance, its powerful physique suggests a male figure. Yet the long, wavy hair, and above all the form of the breast, indicate that it is more likely female. Even so, the figure retains a distinctly androgynous character. Between the two women stands a monumental classical sculpted head of a bearded man. Beyond it, the composition opens onto a strip of sky.

Can the subject perhaps be explained, at least in part, autobiographically? The sculpture’s striking classical profile closely recalls Picasso’s depictions of Marie-Thérèse Walter, with whom he maintained a secret relationship while married to Olga Khokhlova. The features of the nude woman bear a certain resemblance to those of Olga Khokhlova. Does she perhaps suspect that the sculpture shows not merely the artist's model but also his mistress? And might the classical head separating the two women be understood as a veiled self-portrait of Picasso himself?

The Bathhouse

circa 1496-97, woodcut on paper with watermark Imperial Orb, 39 x 28,2 cm

A very fine, rare and early Meder b impression

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Switzerland

PRICE
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Catalogue raisonné: Bartsch 128; Meder 266b; Schoch-Mende-Scherbaum 107b

This large woodcut is the first executed by Dürer after his return to Nuremburg following his trip to Venice. It is one of Dürer's most famous woodcuts. The subject is non-religious, a rarity among the prints he had created until then. The scene is intriguing. A group of six men is shown in what appears to be the outdoor area of a bathhouse. They are nude or clothed in undergarments which cover only the bare minimum. Except for the man drinking on the right, they are all young and have striking athletic, muscular bodies. Especially the man standing at the water faucet on the left catches the eye of the viewer. The humorous positioning and shape of the faucet is a rather clear allusion.

It is not surprising that for some viewers Dürer's Bathhouse seems to be of erotic nature. This interpretation is motivated also by the artist's close friendship with the Humanist and lawyer Willibald Pirckheimer (1470–1530). He wrote a more than explicit homoerotic comment on the portrait drawing that Dürer had executed of him (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett inv. no. KdZ 24623). Several commentators identified Pirckheimer on the woodcut as the man drinking on the right and Dürer as the man leaning on the faucet post. This would give The Bathhouse a personal character. As tempting as such an interpretation might be, I doubt it makes much sense. To me the facial features of the drinking man differ significantly from those in the above-mentioned portrait drawing of Pirckheimer. An even more important objection to a personal interpretation is the simple fact that The Bathhouse is a woodcut intended to sell to a wider public also outside Nuremberg. Why would the buyers of this print be interested in a private scene? In my opinion only the man next to the water faucet can be identified: he resembles Albrecht Dürer.  

If the subject is not a personal one, what ist it? And why was the woodcut of interest to Dürer's contemporary collectors? Perhaps we simply start to look at what it actually shows? We see six men in the foreground, one man behind the fence looking at them and a fantastically rendered cityscape in the background, inspired by Dürer's hometown Nuremberg. Four of the men form two pairs: the two men facing each other in the front and the two musicians behind them. In addition, there are the man standing at the left and the man drinking on the right. The facial expressions of all six men are serious, perhaps even sad. The man leaning on the faucet post rests his head in his hand. This is a well-known gesture of melancholy. The man's fingers reveal his ear, thus it seems that he is listening to the music.
It has been suggested convincingly that five of the men represent the five senses: the man standing at the left „hearing“, the man in the left foreground with the skin rasp „touch“, his companion with the carnation „smell“, the drinking man „taste“ and the man behind the fence „sight“.
How realistic is the scene? I doubt that the outdoor area of a bathhouse was visible to passers-by in Nuremberg of the time. Otherwise, the men would wear more proper clothes. To me the woodcut raises a couple of further questions. Being together in a bathhouse, listening to music, drinking and enjoying the company of friends: why are the men not cheerful? Why is the water in the basin only ankle-deep? Why is there no water flowing from the faucet? Why do the stone blocks in the foreground have unrepaired damage and why are most of the iron staples there missing? To me the whole atmosphere feels sad and melancholic. It is interesting that Dürer published the woodcut shortly after a 1496 edict forced the bathhouses in Nuremberg to close, because of both an outbreak of syphilis and a drought. To me it seems plausible that this explains the serious character of the scene, which could show a last, idealized visit to the bathhouse. Dürer might have created the woodcut for the numerous men who missed their beloved bathhouses and the good times they had there, including himself. But beyond that simple genre scene, Dürer used the subject to show off his newly developed skills influenced by Italian Renaissance art he encountered in Venice and elsewhere: representing athletic, male bodies, based on antique sculptures, and the use of central perspective. Last but not least, he demonstrates his unique ability to show a cityscape in the background, which in turn influenced the Italian Renaissance artists.
In summary, I don't believe Dürer created this woodcut with personal or even erotic intentions. It rather aimed at his Humanist collectors. Many of them must have shared nostalgic memories of the recently closed Nuremberg bathhouses. Some of them, perhaps also Dürer himself, could well have had amorous adventures there, but this is not shown in the woodcut. For Dürer as well as for his educated collectors what made the work so interesting were the latest artistic achievements which he brought back from Italy. Dürer proudly demonstrates these and translates them into his own style. Furthermore he shows his unique artistry in the woodcut technique. For Dürer's contemporaries The Bathouse was revolutionary. In addition, they must have enjoyed deciphering the allegory of the five senses. As a work of art that combines all these different aspects The Bathhouse was and still is prized very highly. And the timeless, humorous faucet-underwear relation of the man at the water source will attract the same attention in the future as it did in 1496. Certainly it will continue to be one of the funniest eye catchers in art history.

An anthropomorphic landscape with a grotesque giant and a drinking donkey

Oil on canvas, 102,5 x 81,6 cm

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Belgium;
Anonymous sale, S.A. Servaerts, Brussels, May 2001, lot 317;
Private collection, France;
Raffael Valls, Ltd., London;
Sotheby's, London, 10-16 December 2021, lot 333 (unsold);
Raffael Valls, Ltd., London;
From whom acquired by a European private collection

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EXHIBITED
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Metamorphoses, Ovid and the arts, 6 February – 25 May 2026, cat. no. 84.

LITERATURE
Frits Scholten, in exhibition catalogue: Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Metamorphoses, Ovid and the arts, 6 February – 25 May 2026, cat. no. 84.

Painted landscapes, rock formations or cloudscapes containing hidden faces and other recognizable figurations are examples of visual coincidence, forms that arise in nature by chance, without human intervention, yet can be interpreted as something else. This 'aleomorphism' relies in turn on the psychological phe-nomenon of 'pareidolia' - the perception and interpretation of specific features in random, natural structures. Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) described this process in De statua
(c. 1450-1460) when explaining the origin of sculpture. Authors in Classical Antiquity recognized the phenomenon too, however, and even the gods of that era regularly resorted to artifice to 'spontaneously' trans-form raw matter into a familiar form. Jupiter, for instance, fashioned a female figure called Nephele or Nubes out of clouds in order to deceive Ixion whose eye had fallen on the supreme god's wife Juno a metamorphosis mentioned by various classical authors.

In the course of the sixteenth century, artists actively began to vie with nature itself to create ambiguous images of this kind. Landscapes in particular, in which faces and occasionally (as here) entire figures are hidden, became a genre in themselves. Pioneers of this 'cryptomorphism' included Pieter Bruegel (c. 1525-1569), who concealed faces and animals in the Alpine landscapes he engraved in 1555-1556. In later generations, however, the meticulousness with which he did so gave way to a less refined visual game, in which the landscape took second place to the form hidden within it. Motifs were presented a little too conspicuously, rendering them 'suspect' in the eyes of the viewer, who takes little time to spot a face or figure in the arrangement of different natural details and hence to witness the metamorphosis of a landscape into a living being.

This curious painting by an unidentified follower of Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526-1593) is made up of an extravagantly rocky coastal landscape with a setting sun against a turbulent cloudy sky. On closer inspection, however, the rocks turn out to be some kind of crouching human bird, apparently laying an egg in the shape of the setting sun. The monstrous hybrid wears a hat depicting a house on fire, the flames of which form a wreath or crown around its head. The profile, with its almost beak-shaped nose, recalls Arcimboldo's The Cook - Meat Platter. In the steep, wooded cliff on the far right, we make out the shape of a donkey's head with cypresses for its pricked-up ears. In the foreground, mean-while, and on the grassy meadows that form the crouching monster's back, all sorts of people are active, some of them hunting large flightless birds. There is a variation on this work, painted in lighter colours and lacking the expressively cloudy sky and setting sun, in which the squatting figure is a giant emptying its bowels.

The precise meaning is not clear, which might well have been the intention: to encourage the viewer to search for solutions in this visual puzzle. Is the rock formation a crouching man or maybe an owl? The humour of the anthropomorphic landscape is likely to have derived in part from the fact that the people in the painting are oblivious to what is going on beneath their feet. Perhaps the donkey's head is meant therefore as a surreptitious commentary on their stupidity?

(Quoted from Frits Scholten).

Etching, 1933/34
On heavy wove paper, plate size: 87 x 145 mm, sheet size: 227 x 315 mm; with full margins.
Signed in pencil, inscribed 'Pour Lacourière' and '2e E. no 2/4'

• one of Picasso's rarest prints
• the only known proof of this state
• dedicated to Roger Lacourière, printer of the Suite Vollard

PROVENANCE
Roger Lacourière, Paris
Sotheby's, London, 6 October 1976, Lot 90
Private Collection
Christie's, New York, 6 November 1996, Lot 331
There acquired by a Private Collection, Switzerland
By descent until 2020

PRICE
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LITERATURE
Bernhard Geiser et Brigitte Baer, Picasso Peintre-Graveur, 373 II/II

This is the only known proof of this state, although, judging from the inscription in the lower left, there seem to have been originally 4 proofs. There is one proof of the first state in the Museé Picasso, Paris (MP 2406).

The Holy Trinity
Oil on wood, 112 x 82 cm

PROVENANCE
Collection Helmuth Lüttgens, Aachen;
Collection Axel Heinemann, Aachen;
Sale Philipps, London 10.12.1991, Lot 42 (as 'South German, 16th Century');
Sale Kunsthaus am Museum, Carola van Ham, Köln, 23.-25.6.1993, Lot 937 (as 'Westphalia, 15th Century');
Collection Steinmetz-Härle;
Sale Lempertz, Cologne, 15 May 2010, lot 1504;
Private Collection, Germany.

PRICE
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EXHIBITION
Lindau, Stadtmuseum, Das spätgotische Tafelbild im deutschsprachigen Raum – Eine Privatsammlung, Lindau 2007, p. 11, no. 5 (as 'Austrian, circa 1450')

This powerful painting shows the three divine beings of the Trinity: God the Father, Christ and the Holy Ghost. God, sitting on his throne, supports his son, Christ, who is shown crucified and in a smaller scale. The Holy Ghost is represented by a dove that hovers between the two. On either side, three angels kneel in adoration.
The simple colour scheme of green, red and blue, which traditionally is a symbolic reference to the Trinity, is striking against the gilded and patterned background. This panel once formed the central part of an altarpiece with panels on either side. The hinge marks are still visible on the frame, which is original to the picture.

Le Repos du sculpteur devant des chevaux et un taureau
from the "Suite Vollard"
31 March 1933

Etching on „Vergé de Montval“ with watermark „Vollard“, Plate: 19,4 x 26,7 cm  
Bloch 166; Baer 319/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

Vanitas still-life – Three skulls

circa 1930

oil on canvas, 40,5 x 61 cm.
Verso on the stretcher with the stamp of the artist's estate

PROVENANCE
Estate of the artist
Gallery Hasenclever, Munich
Gallery Michael Haas, Berlin
Collection Rüdiger Hurrle, Durbach
Bassenge, Berlin, 12 June 2021, lot 8493

PRICE
Please contact me

EXHIBITION
Berlin, Gallery Michael Haas, Stillleben. gestern und heute, 2015, p. 50
Durbach, Museum für Aktuelle Kunst Sammlung Hurrle, Das Lied der Dinge. Stillleben im Wandel der Kunst, 2018

LITERATURE
Felicia H. Sternfeld, Georg Scholz 1890-1945, Frankfurt am Main 2004, Nr. 91, pp. 383, 487

Georg Scholz is well-known for his socially critical paintings of the 1920s. Having studied under Hans Thoma and Lovis Corinth, he became a leading figure of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), a movement whose artists practised a cynical form of realism. In 1925, he was appointed a professor at the Baden State Academy of Art in Karlsruhe. With the rise to power of the Nazis in 1933, Scholz was dismissed from his teaching position. Declared a Degenerate Artist, his works were among those seized in 1937 and he was forbidden to paint in 1939.

The present work is at once a timeless Vanitas and a visionary painting, given the tragic events that would evolve soon after its creation.

The Descent from the Cross by Torchlight
Etching and drypoint
1654
Plate: 21 x 16,3 cm
Sheet: 21,9 x 17 cm
The New Hollstein (Hinterding/Rutgers) 286/I (of IV)
White/Boon 83

• one of Rembrandt's most dramatic night scenes
• a magnificent impression of extraordinary beauty in perfect condition
• with an outstanding provenance
• the best available on the market

PROVENANCE
Wilhelm Eduard Drugulin (1825 – Leipzig – 1879), Lugt 2612
Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge, London, 11 June 1866, lot 1360
Dr. August Sträter (1810 – Aix-la-Chapelle  – 1897), Lugt 787
H.G. Gutekunst, Stuttgart, 18 May 1898, lot 719: „Impression of extraordinary beauty, with rich burr, in perfect condition, with margins. From the Drugulin collection. Very rare“.
There acquired by Keppel.
Atherton Curtis ( New York 1863 – Paris 1943), Lugt 94
Gutekunst und Klipstein, Bern, 28 April 1955, lot 94: „Impression of extraordinary beauty, with rich burr, especially in Christ's beard and to the back of the man supporting the corpse; deep black impression on white paper, thereby particularly favourably emphasizing the character of a night scene. In excellent condition, with at least 3 mm margins all around the platemark“.
There acquired by Dr. Louis Karl (owner of Karl & Faber), Munich.
Private collection „P“, not listed in Lugt.

PRICE
Please contact me.

The Descent from the Cross by Torchlight is one of Rembrandt's most dramatic prints. The composition is ingenious. The focus of attention is led not to the centre but to the upper left. The whole movement of the scene starts there with the grisly detail of the nail through Christ's right foot. A man is hammering it out of the foot to finally detach Christ from the cross. Next to him stands a man who holds the torch, the only source of light. Typically for Rembrandt he thought through in detail how the removal from the cross would work. Two men on a ladder are carefully lowering the large cloth in which Christ is wrapped. The man seen from behind is holding the corpse and one can feel the full weight of the body he is bearing. An almost magically illuminated hand comes out of the gloom to the right, as another man comes to his assistance. The foreground is dominated by the bier, which is the destination for Christ's body and where the movement through the composition initiated at the upper left will come to an end. One of the main characters, Joseph of Arimathea, who is draping the sheet, is in the shadow and can be seen only upon closer examination. The same is true for Rembrandt's signature and the date, which the artist has almost hidden in the drapery of the sheet.

This is the most beautiful impression on the market, with rich burr and at least 3 mm margins all around the platemark. The condition is impeccable.

The Young Christ adored by Saint John the Baptist, 1534

signed lower left with the artist's device of a winged serpent with elevated wings, and dated: 1534

oil on panel, 35.2 x 23.2 cm.; 13⅞ x 9⅛ in.

Please contact me for the price!

Provenance
(probably collection M. Benito Garriga, Madrid)
(probably his sale Hotel Drouot, Paris, 24 March 1890, Lot 2)
Edward R. Bacon (1848–1915), New York
Albert Keller (1879–1939), New York, by 1928
Mr and Mrs Drury W. Cooper, New Jersey, by circa 1935–40
Thence by descent to John M. Cooper (b. 1939), Princeton
By whom anonymously sold, New York, Sotheby's, 12 January 1995, lot 10
Where acquired for a private collection, USA
Whence sold (‘Property from an American Private Collection’), New York, Sotheby's, 28 January 2016, lot 14 (sold for 850,000 USD)
There acquired by a private collector
Sotheby's, London, 8 December 2021, Lot 3, withdrawn as the consignment agreement was never signed by the owner
Hampel auctions, Munich, 29 June 2023, Lot 178 (sold for 971,000 Euro)

Catalogue raisonée
Max J. Friedländer und Jakob Rosenberg: Die Gemälde von Lucas Cranach, Berlin 1932, no. 184. Max J. Friedländer und Jakob Rosenberg: Die Gemälde von Lucas Cranach, Basel und Stuttgart 1979, no. 222.

Exhibited
Düsseldorf, Museum Kunstpalast, Lucas Cranach der Altere: Meister, Marke, Moderne, 8. April – 30 Juli 2017, no. 82.

Christ on the cross with Mary and Saint John and three angels
Woodcut on parchment; hand coloured and with gold leaves on the haloes
Sheet: 36,4 x 25,6 cm
Schreiber 950

• a true gem in the history of print making
• iconic and powerful image
• extremely rare
• better than the impression in the National Gallery, Washington

PROVENANCE
Hellmuth Wallach (1901 – Munich, New York, Bern, Peretshofen - 1989)
by descent until 2015
Emanuel von Baeyer, London
From whom acquired by a Private collection

PRICE
Please contact me

LITERATURE
Ludwig Hain, Repertorium bibliographicum, Stuttgart 1828-38, vol. 1, no. 1272
W.H. Weale, Catalogus missalium ritus latini ab anno 1474, London 1886, p. 43
Paul Heitz, mit einer Einleitung von Wilhelm Ludwig Schreiber, Christus am Kreuz, Kanonbilder der in Deutschland gedruckten Messbücher des 15. Jahrhunderts, Straßburg 1910, p. 20, no. 33 and plate 33
Schreiber, Wilhelm Ludwig, Handbuch der Holz- und Metallschnitte des XV. Jahrhunderts, vol. 2, Leipzig,  1926-1930, vol. 2, no. 950
Richard S. Field, Fifteenth Century Woodcuts and Metalcuts from the National Gallery of Art, Exh. cat. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1965, no 140 (an uncoloured copy)
Wilhelm Ludwig Schreiber, Catalogue des incunables a figures, Imprimes en Allemagne, en Suisse, en Autriche-Ongrie et en Scandinavie, vol. 2, reedition of 1911, Stuttgart 1969, no. 4677,2
The illustrated Bartsch 163 (Supplement) ed. by Richard S. Field, German Single-leaf woodcuts before 1500, 1990, no. 950
Emanuel von Baeyer, The Hellmuth Wallach collection, London 2016, no. 8, p. 26, 27 (erroneously as Michael Wolgemut)

A note on the provenance:
Hellmuth Wallach was one of the leading antiquarians in Munich. As a Jew he was forced to emigrate after the Nazis came to power. He reestablished his Munich business in New York at 558 Madison Avenue together with Emil Hirsch. As a true Bavarian Hellmuth Wallach was terribly homesick, but it wasn’t until 1970 that he returned to Europe, first to Switzerland and then to the tiny village of Peretshofen, located in the beautiful foothills of the Bavarian Alps. Wallach’s extraordinary collection of prints of the finest quality had a special focus on Old Masters and spanned from the 15th to the 19th century.

The present Christ on the cross is an extremely rare single-leaf woodcut from the 15th century. Its powerful simplicity in design gives it a timeless beauty. It was also used as a Canon woodcut in the Missale Brandenburgensis, Nuremberg, 1494. Most of the early single-leaf woodcuts did not survive due to their fragility and everyday use. They were regarded by their contemporaries as holy objects that had physical power against evil and disease. As such they were often pasted on walls of the interior rooms to be as present and close as possible. Our Christ on the cross is special in several ways. First of all, it is exceptionally well preserved. Then it is originally hand coloured with the haloes of St. Mary and St. John in precious gold leaves. And it is printed on parchment instead of the more common paper. It is a true gem in the history of print making.

There is another, but uncoloured copy on parchment in the National Gallery, Washington, Rosenwald collection, 1943.3.542
www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.3754.html

Two embracing putti
Oil on paper, 23,5 x 25,2 cm

• very beautiful, refined study
• characteristic monochrome oil on paper

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Paris

PRICE
Please contact me

I am grateful to Prof. Daniele Benati for confirming the attribution to Lorenzo Pasinelli based on high resolution images.

Lorenzo Pasinelli was a native of Bologna. There he studied under Simone Cantarini, one of Guido Reni’s most talented pupils. Cantarini had developed a more fluid, free manner in his later career, and his light brushwork would influence Pasinelli’s own expressive style. After Cantarini died in 1648, Pasinelli worked three years under Flaminio Torri before setting out alone, establishing his own successful workshop as one of Bologna’s leading masters. He subsequently worked in Mantua and Rome, and received prestigious international commissions from Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor (1640-1705) and Hans-Adam I, Prince of Liechtenstein (1662-1712) among others.

Pasinelli painted this refined and characteristic composition of two putti in monochrome oil. This technique played an important role in the artist's creative process and working methods. His monochromes were initially conceived as an intermediary stage in the creation of finished paintings. But as collectors and patrons were very interested in these studies, Pasinelli recognized their great commercial potential. So it is very well possible that our sheet was not intended as a preparatory sketch but as a highly attractive work for collectors.

Study Head of a Bearded Man

Oil over black chalk on paper, laid down on canvas, 48,5 x 34,8 cm

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Austria

PRICE
18.000 Euro

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).

PRICE
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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

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

Please contact me for the price

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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