Georg Kolbe
Porträt Ludwig Derleth (1870-1948)
1904
Bronze. Mounted on polished black, slightly conical marble base (18.1 x 13.5 x 13 cm) Height 34.5 cm Unsigned. One of two old casts, the other in the Schiller-Nationalmuseum, Marbach. - With fine dark brown patina, greenish in places. - The front edge of base with minimal traces of scratches.
Ludwig Derleth's first poems were published in the magazine “Pan” in 1896-1898. The not quite 21-year old Georg Kolbe had met this character, described as very charismatic, in Paris in 1898 and, for a short period of time, had been intellectually heavily influenced by Derleth; in the same year, he had also started a relationship with the poet's sister, Anna-Maria Derleth, with whom he had fallen in love. The sculptor's hurried stay in Rome in September ended this relationship; Kolbe followed his artistic calling and stayed in Italy for three years. The contact for the later portrait commission of 1904, for which Derleth and Kolbe met up again, had been made by the painter and writer Gustav Richter, a grandson of Giacomo Meyerbeer, whom the sculptor had also met in Paris in 1898 (cf. Ursel Berger, op. cit., p. 14 ff.).
Catalogue Raisonné
Berger 3
Certificate
We would like to thank Ursel Berger, Berlin, for kind information.
Provenance
From the possession of Ludwig Derleth; Hinder u. Deelmann Publishers, Gladenbach; Art trade Frankfurt (acquired there); since then in North German private possession
Literature
Lothar Helbing (i.a.), Ludwig Derleth Gedenkbuch, (Castrum Peregrini Presse) Amsterdam 1957, illus. after p. 128; Ursel Berger, Georg Kolbe - Leben und Werk mit dem Katalog der Kolbe-Plastiken im Georg-Kolbe-Museum, Berlin 1990, p. 14 ff. and p. 209/210 with illus. (recast from 1958/1959 in the Kolbe-Museum)