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During his younger years, Franz Koenigs' education and career took him to Munich, Paris, London, Romania, the Indies, Berlin and Cologne, and for much of this time he was already forming what would become one of the most legendary of modern collections. However, it was only when he moved to Haarlem, in the Netherlands, and with his cousins founded the Rhodius Koenigs Handel-Maatschappij, a bank and trading company, that he began to collect on a vast scale. By 1935, his collection consisted of well over 2500 drawings by artists as diverse as Dürer, Grünewald, Tintoretto, Rubens, Rembrandt, Watteau, Millet, Degas, Manet, Cézanne... And alongside these, he also possessed a great number of museum-quality oil paintings, including a group of celebrated Rubens and four oils by Hieronymous Bosch. Many of these works are now in museum collections. Koenigs was born in 1881, the son of a prominent bank director in Cologne and a Dutch mother. Before becoming a banker in his own right, Koenigs travelled widely, working in various companies and fields-he had briefly studied law, worked in a jute manufacturer in London, an oil company in Romania, and held positions in various other banks and companies. His natural flair for business was always evident, and it was this that allowed him to found the Rhodius Koenigs bank before he was forty years old. Koenigs' collection was the result of a slow and steady evolution, as his tastes and his eye developed with each purchase. Despite the prominence in his collection of German, Swiss, Italian and Netherlandish drawings, his first purchases in fact appear to have been prints by Toulouse-Lautrec that he bought in Paris when he was only seventeen, and he would continue to collect his prints enthusiastically in his twenties; meanwhile, his first two drawings, which he acquired shortly afterwards in London, were by Millet. Much of Koenigs' original collection was dispersed during the Second World War in circumstances that continue to have ramifications to this day. In his seminal work, Les marques de collection de dessins et d'estampes, the art historian-and another legendary Dutch collector - Frits Lugt commented that, 'cet amateur s'est reserveé une dizaine de feuilles pour sa collection particulière', which fortunately was a great understatement of the case. Not only did Koenigs retain several Old Master drawings, but he also held onto his more modern works - with prescience, he deposited as many as possible that might have been classed as 'Entartete Kunst' from his collection in safe-keeping at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, while his collection of prints, including his cherished works by Toulouse-Lautrec -- he had accumulated the artist's entire graphic oeuvre, an awesome achievement -- remained in his house in Haarlem. He continued to collect avidly, forming his so-called 'Second Collection' from which the works on offer are largely taken. It is a reflection of the quality of this collection, that the selection being offered here includes works in various categories by artists as diverse as by Baldung, Cézanne, Cuyp, Degas, Manet, and Rembrandt. PROPERTY FROM THE FRANZ KOENIGS COLLECTION

Edouard Manet (1832-1883)

Lettre à Bracquemond (Une pomme entourée de ses feuilles)

Details

Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
Lettre à Bracquemond (Une pomme entourée de ses feuilles)
signed 'E. Manet' (upper right edge); dated and inscribed 'Bellevue. 20 Sbre' (centre right)
watercolour and wash, pen and ink (autographed manuscript from the artist to Félix Bracquemond) on paper
8 x 5 in. (20.1 x 12.5 cm.)
Executed on 20 September 1880 in Bellevue

Provenance

Félix Bracquemond, Paris, sent from the artist in 1880.
Paul Cassirer, Amsterdam.
Franz Koenigs, Amsterdam, by whom acquired from the above before 1938 (on loan to the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1938-1949), and thence by descent to the present owners.

Literature

J. Guiffrey, Lettres illustrées d'Edouard Manet, Paris, 1929, pp. 7-8 (illustrated pl. XXII).
A. Tabarant, Manet et ses oeuvres, Paris, 1947, p. 394.
A. de Leiris, The Drawings of Edouard Manet, Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1969, no. 541.
D. Rouart & D. Wildenstein, Edouard Manet, Catalogue raisonné, Pastels, aquarelles et dessins, vol. II, Geneva, 1975, no. 581 (illustrated p. 209).
J. Wilson-Bareau (ed.), Manet by himself, paintings, pastels, prints & drawings, London, 1991, no. 200 (illustrated p. 258).

Exhibited

Amsterdam, Paul Cassirer, Fransche Meesters uit de XIXe eeuw, July - August 1938, no. 82 (illustrated).

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The two letters in the present and following lot were sent by Manet to his friend Félix Bracquemond (1833-1914) in the fall of 1880, during his stay at the spa town of Bellevue near Paris, where he was recovering from the exhausting pace of city life. In the present Manet reassures Bracquemond about the state of his health: 'Mon cher Bracquemond, remettons si vous voulez la visite chez Goncourt - il fait bien vilain temps et je suis enrhumé. J'irai vous voir un de ces matins. Je compte quitter Bellevue à la fin du mois. Amitiés, E. Manet'. In the second letter (lot 518) Manet thanks him for giving him a work of art to decorate his room: 'Merci, mon cher Bracquemond, cela va très bien faire dans notre salon absolument vide d'oeuvres d'art - amitiés et à vous E. Manet'. Bracquemond, a painter and print-maker, worked with Manet on his prints. He did some pastel portraits of Manet in 1864 as well as a few portrait etchings for Zola's 1867 pamphlet. He was an artist active in many fields, he led the revival of original printmaking and helped to foster the growing enthusiasm for Oriental art in the 1860s. In 1865, Manet executed an etching of Bracquemond (Guérin 42) to illustrate Lalanne's Traité de la gravure. It was often Manet's practice when writing to his closest friends, to illustrate his letters with charming watercolours. The motif of L'arrosoir recurs twice in Manet's Bellevue paintings (Wildenstein, nos. 347 and 348; fig. 1).

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