Lot 313 Dα

According to the information kindly provided by Anke Matelowski (Die Berliner Secession 1899-1937, Chronik, Kontext, Schicksal, Nibus-Verlag, Wädenswil/Schweiz 2017), the Secession label on the reverse most likely refers to the painter's selection for the exhibition "IV. Kunstausstellung der Berliner Secession - Zeichnende Künste" in Kantstraße. Encouraged by Max Liebermann and other friends, it was Heinrich Zille's first public presentation. His coloured drawings and etchings displayed at the time can no longer be identified. According to the catalogue, some were entitled "Aus dem dunklen Berlin“. The present nocturnal motif definitely fitted into this context.
“An etching from 1898 entitled “s' dunkle Berlin” gives an impression of the kind of works which Zille displayed. He apparently borrowed his main title of 1901 from the title of a series of articles with which the “Berliner Morgenpost” caused a sensation at its market launch in 1898. The whole of Berlin read the contributions, which led readers into dark streets and quarters, night coffee houses, bars, and criminal's hangouts. Zille was not illustrative, but the locations of his pictorial inventions were in the same milieu." (Philipp Kuhn, Mittendrin und doch am Ende. Heinrich Zille und die moderne Kunstwelt Berlins der Jahrhundertwende, in: Typen mit Tiefgang. Heinrich Zille und sein Berlin, exhib. cat. Museum für Kunst und Technik des 19. Jahrhunderts, Baden-Baden 2013, p. 140/141; for the mentioned etching see Rosenbach 15).
At the time, Zille's works still provoked fierce rejection: "Zille's issue is in vogue but not the form of his expression." (Matthias Flügge, H. Zille. Berliner Leben, Zeichnungen, Photographien und Druckgraphiken 1890-1914, exhib. cat. Akademie der Künste Berlin, Munich 2008, p. 24)