ADOLPH VON MENZEL (BRESLAU 1815-1905 BERLIN)
ADOLPH VON MENZEL (BRESLAU 1815-1905 BERLIN)
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Property from the Collection of Max J. Friedländer
ADOLPH VON MENZEL (BRESLAU 1815-1905 BERLIN)

Portrait of a woman looking down to the right

Details
ADOLPH VON MENZEL (BRESLAU 1815-1905 BERLIN)
Portrait of a woman looking down to the right
signed with initials and dated 'A.M. ‘83.' (upper left)
black chalk with stumping
8 x 4 ¾ in. (20.1 x 12 cm)
Provenance
Max Jakob Friedländer (1867-1958), Berlin and Amsterdam; Paul Brandt, Amsterdam, 17 March 1959, lot 43.

Brought to you by

Giada Damen, Ph.D.
Giada Damen, Ph.D. AVP, Specialist, Head of Sale

Lot Essay

Menzel was a remarkable draftsman. In the last decades of his life he drew a large number of informal, close-up portraits, in graphite or black chalk. These portraits were not of friends, but of people he saw in the streets of Berlin. In these drawings, like in the present one, the heads are often portrayed in profile, or seen from the back, or from other unusual angles. In his works Menzel aspired to capture a fleeting moment, the fragility and sometimes the melancholy of the sitter, as he does in this work.

This drawing was in the collection of the renowned art historian Max J. Friedländer, director of the Berlin Museum until 1933. Professor Friedländer, a contemporary of Menzel, was the author of a celebrated fourteen-volume publication on Early Netherlandish painting.

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