Herbert Gustave Schmalz (1857-1935)
Herbert Gustave Schmalz (1857-1935)

Eve in exile

Details
Herbert Gustave Schmalz (1857-1935)
Eve in exile
signed 'Herbert Carmichael' (lower right)
oil on canvas
73 x 39 in. (185.4 x 99.1 cm.)
Provenance
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 11 June 1986, lot 160.
Literature
Royal Academy Pictures, London, 1911, p. 145, illustrated.
Pall Mall Magazine Extra, Pictures of 1911, London, 1911, p. 55, illustrated.
T. Blakemore, The Art of Herbert Schmalz, London, 1911, illustrated opp. p. 140.
Exhibited
London, Royal Academy, 1911, no. 282.
Engraved
F.T. Dennis, 118 Chancery Lane, London, 1912.

Brought to you by

Clare Keiller
Clare Keiller

Lot Essay

Born near Newcastle in 1856, Schmalz was the son of a successful immigrant German businessman and his Scottish wife. His mother had been born Margaret Carmichael and was the daughter of the marine painter J.W. Carmichael, from whom young Schmalz perhaps derived his talent. During the First World War, Schmalz responded to anti-German feeling by adopting Carmichael as his surname, and this picture is hence signed 'Herbert Carmichael'.

At the Royal Academy schools Schmalz was taught by Leighton and Alma-Tadema, while Arthur Hacker, Stanhope Forbes and Henry La Thangue were among his fellow students. Both Leighton and Alma-Tadema are said to have taken a personal interest in his progress, and they, Millais and G.F. Watts were all among his acknowledged early influences. Schmalz's range as an artist was wide, embracing historical, literary and biblical subjects, genre scenes, portraits and landscapes. He began to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1879, while also supporting its rival, the Grosvenor Gallery and its successor, the New Gallery as well as selling through the dealers, Dowdeswell's.

By 1880 Schmalz had joined the artistic community that grew up around Leighton, the undisputed head of the Victorian art establishment, in Holland Park, Kensington. Like many artists in this community, he employed the Pullan sisters, a family of working-class girls living in straightened circumstances in New Cross, as models. The best-known was the eldest, Dorothy, an actress who became the presiding muse of Leighton's later work, better known by her stage name of Dorothy Dene. Certainly Schmalz knew the sisters well, marrying the second eldest, Edith, who also sat to Leighton, in 1889.

The figure of Eve, with her head downcast in her hands, is reminiscent of one the female figures in Schmalz’s masterpiece Faithful unto Death: ‘Christianae ad Leones!’ (sold in these Rooms, 28 November 2000, lot 55, achieving the record price for the artist), which showed a group of unclothed Christian women chained in the Roman Coliseum.

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