Lot 254 D

Mela Muter moved from Warsaw to Paris, the artistic metropolis, in 1905; after World War I she advanced to become a sought-after portraitist of high society - leading intellectual figures and artists stood as models for her - and she likewise depicted children and old people from the poorest classes. Figures like Severini, Gleizes and Ravel would meet in her studio, and she was a close friend of Rilke.
Her portraits share their unflinching depiction even of physiognomic idiosyncrasies. This is accompanied by an exquisitely splendid manner of painting and neutralises, so to speak, her models' physical deficiencies. The poses are always highly expressive and feature striking shifts in perspective, investing these likenesses with an element of universal interest, which today's viewers are not able to resist either.

Wrapped in a coat whose collar and sleeves are thickly lined with fur, the depicted figure rests on a rattan armchair in a dramatic pose, with her body twisted sharply; her ringed hands are raised to her mouth, with its red lipstick, and her greenish eyes look out at the viewers with cool interest. The impasto flesh tones of the face and hands have been applied with a palette knife, but nonetheless cause their texture to appear soft and supple. The manner in which the sitter's head at the left of the middle ground has been diagonally tied to the flowers depicted from above at the right of the foreground creates a strong sense of movement within the portrait - perhaps a reference to the model's agile character. The fur coat and the colourful, freshly cut flowers testify to a certain degree of wealth, and a mondaine aura surrounds the model.
As indicated by the catalogue entry of the Galerie Gmurzynska, the “Dame mit Pelz” offered here was exhibited as a loan from “Fürstenberg, Paris” at the 1967 retrospective presented after Muter's death. That was the name of Mela Muter's married sister, encouraging the assumption that this refers to Mme Fürstenberg as the sitter. Writing on the reverse side identifies the portrait as formerly a reserved deposit for the National Museum in Warsaw.