拍品專文
This newly discovered work is similar to the recorded drawing of Lt Gen Winterfeldt, now in the National Gallery of Berlin.
This work shows by contrast the head of the model fully completed and the hands loosening the sash, in a different postion. The size is similar to the Berlin drawing but is not irregularly trimmed, and more importantly is dated '(18) 50'. The Berlin drawing has been dated to the early months of 1851 mainly due to a report in 'Deutscher Kunsteralt' dated 10 May 1851 which states 'Adolf Menzel has just completed the drawing of General Winterfeldt the series of heroic portraits from the Seven Years War which he will publish as woodcuts'. The series of woodcuts referred to was 'From King Frederick's time, heroes of war and peace drawin by Adolf Menzel, cut in wood by Eduard Kretzschmar' and was published between 1854-6 by Alexander Ducker in Berlin. General Winterfeldt was the 4th of 12 prints. In the 1984 exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum 'Prints and Drawings by Adolf Menzel a selection from the collections of the Museums of West Berlin'no 39. The catalogue referring to the Berlin version states:
'Apart from the fact that Menzel already had achieved astonishing effects with a kind of 'monumentalizing' style in the tiny illustration of Kugler's 'Life of Frederick the Great' of 1840, that woodcut series is not really an illustration, since there is not text to accompany it. It is precisely because of thier autonomy that the prints in this series, each an heroic portrait, achieve their monumental character. Menzel's 'non-aristocratic' eye which was on the point of transforming conventional history painting, nevertheless asserts itself here. The 'monumentalised' general is portrayed at a decidedly unheroic, almost intimate moment: he had already taken off his tricorn hat and is loosening his sash. This drawing immortalises the gesture.
This work shows by contrast the head of the model fully completed and the hands loosening the sash, in a different postion. The size is similar to the Berlin drawing but is not irregularly trimmed, and more importantly is dated '(18) 50'. The Berlin drawing has been dated to the early months of 1851 mainly due to a report in 'Deutscher Kunsteralt' dated 10 May 1851 which states 'Adolf Menzel has just completed the drawing of General Winterfeldt the series of heroic portraits from the Seven Years War which he will publish as woodcuts'. The series of woodcuts referred to was 'From King Frederick's time, heroes of war and peace drawin by Adolf Menzel, cut in wood by Eduard Kretzschmar' and was published between 1854-6 by Alexander Ducker in Berlin. General Winterfeldt was the 4th of 12 prints. In the 1984 exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum 'Prints and Drawings by Adolf Menzel a selection from the collections of the Museums of West Berlin'no 39. The catalogue referring to the Berlin version states:
'Apart from the fact that Menzel already had achieved astonishing effects with a kind of 'monumentalizing' style in the tiny illustration of Kugler's 'Life of Frederick the Great' of 1840, that woodcut series is not really an illustration, since there is not text to accompany it. It is precisely because of thier autonomy that the prints in this series, each an heroic portrait, achieve their monumental character. Menzel's 'non-aristocratic' eye which was on the point of transforming conventional history painting, nevertheless asserts itself here. The 'monumentalised' general is portrayed at a decidedly unheroic, almost intimate moment: he had already taken off his tricorn hat and is loosening his sash. This drawing immortalises the gesture.