Lot 204 Dα

The 'Still Life with Wine Bottle' radiates upper-class elegance. The white damask tablecloth and sparkling crystal are enhanced by the various red tones of the basket and the book, the wine and the marmelade. Moreover, there is a certain nonchalance inherent in the spontaneous situation: the bread has been broken, the wine has not been drunk yet and the napkin is crumpled and placed aside. The decentralised postioning of the picture's motifs adds to the impression that the table was abandoned shortly before - the diner, the observer, and the painter all view the scene from the same angle.
The seemingly haphazard arrangement of the tableware and food indicates the private nature of the scene. It does not correspond particularly to the other still lifes Jawlensky frequently painted in the years 1902 - 1907, with apples and different kinds of porcelain arranged in beautiful compositions (cf. exhib. cat. Alexej Georgewitsch von Jawlensky, Jena 2012, cat. no. 1/6, 1/8, 1/10, 1/12). The random quality and the impression the picture makes of being a cut-out detail - defined and emphasised by the green narrow border enclosing it - result in a very modern effect. In its extreme top view of the table, our piece is related to the 'Still Life with Kulitsch', in which the back of a chair marks the boundaries between horizontal and vertical space (cf. M.Jawlensky/Pieroni-Jawlenky/A.Jawlensky, Alexej von Jawlensky, cat. rais. of the oil paintings, Munich 1991, vol. I, no. 121, colour illus. p. 118), and the 'Still Life with Apples and a Blue Cup', or 'Still Life Blue-Orange' (ibid., cat. no. 81, 77), in which the spacial continuum is also questioned. In its cubistic-like brushstrokes, through which the objects have been endowed with a high degree of plasticity, this work bears a similarity to the 'Still Life with Bottle and Apples', completed in the same year (see comparative illus.). Here, Jawlensky's interest in Cézanne's work, which he may very well have seen on his first trip to Paris in 1902, is obvious; five years later, he would travel to Paris explicitly to see the Cezanne exhibition there.
The 'Still Life with Wine Bottle' was acquired in 1912 by the textile manufacturer and art collector Adolf Simons, whose paintings later came into the possession - partly as donation - of the museum in Elberfeld, today's Von der Heydt Musum (see i.a. the Jahresbericht des Elberfelder Städtischen Museums für 1919/1920, p. 2). Simons himself had a lively contact with artists like Richard Bloos, whom he actively supported, and Bernhard Hoetger, who did a portrait bust of Simons' first wife, Lis, in 1910. This bust was displayed at Goltz in 1913 in the exhibition 'Neue Kunst' (Exhib. IV. Group Exhibit, Neue Kunst, Hans Goltz, Munich 1913, with full-page illus.; Dieter Tino Wehner, Bernhard Hoetger, Alfter 1994, cat. nos. 0610-062). In the same year, Adolf Simons acquired a large 1903 still life with paper bag and fruits by Max Slevogt (see Lempertz/International Auctioneers, 4 June 2002, lot 10; now on display in the Liebermann House, Pariser Platz, Berlin). Simons was very much involved in the cultural life of his native city and, for example, financed the Lohmann House, an exhibition venue for, among other things, contemporary art.
Alexej von Jawlensky, too, presumably met Adolf Simons during his visits to Wuppertal. As early as 1910 and 1911, the annual reports of the Barmen Art Association record sales of works by Jawlensky. In the same year, the 'Neue Künstlervereinigung München' (New Artists' Association of Munich) - out of which arose 'Der Blaue Reiter' (The Blue Rider) - was presented in a show there, in spite of the fact that this art style was considered 'extreme' and its artistic quality was called into question (see Jahresbericht Kunstverein in Barmen 1911, p. 12). In 1910, in the City Museum of Elberfeld, the 'NKVM' also had a show, and in 1911 eighty works by Jawlensky were displayed (see exhib. cat. Der Westdeutsche Impuls 1900-1914. Stadtentwicklung, Sammlungen, Ausstellungen, Düsseldorf/Hagen/Cologne/Krefeld/Wuppertal 1984, pp. 101 ff.) There were plenty of opportunities in these years for the artist and the collector to meet - also at the big 'Sonderbund' exhibition in 1912 in Cologne, in which Jawlensky was also represented by a few of his paintings (see also Annegret Hoberg, 'Künstler sind nicht von den Ausstellungen abhängig, sondern die Ausstellungen ganz und gar von den Künstlern'. 'Der Blaue Reiter auf der Sonderbundausstellung 1912,' in: exhib. cat. 1912. Mission Moderne, die Jahrhundertschau des Sonderbundes, Cologne 2012, pp. 244 ff.). Jawlensky's 'Still Life with Wine Bottle' hung in Adolf Simons' dining room, stimulating the appetite along with other still lifes by John Duncan Fergusson (see Lempertz/International Auctioneers 4 June 2002, lot 11)and Max Slevogt, among others (see comparative illus.).