Lot 118 D

"Cucuel [...] comprehends the phenomenon of women as they dress and adorn themselves or relate to the world around them, understands their easy demeanour in conversation and gesture. His earlier work may still have been mainly describing the model - but his current art has long since ceased to do so. Of all the young Munich painters, he is almost the only one whose pictures breath the air of the 'wide world'. Even back when Munich was the undisputed German art capital, 'sophisticated' painters were rare [...]." In 1924 Cucuel's contemporary Fritz von Ostini went on to write, that the artist did not focus on chic exclusively like some other painters of fashionable ladies. "For him, the depiction of a pretty and lightly dressed woman, of a lady [...], was just an opportunity for allowing the play of light and colour to achieve its fullest effect." (F.v. Ostini, Der Maler Edward Cucuel, Zurich/Vienna/Leipzig 1924, pp. 39ff.)
Also in this painting, the emphasis is not on the characteristics of the individual person. Far more important is how clothing and setting offer a possibility to display varying textures and surfaces. The folds of the dress follow the brushstrokes and are set at contrasting angles, like those of the star-shaped growth of the green bush in the background. These folds convey a certain vivacity which, however, is counterbalanced by the calm surface of the lake and the casual grace of the model. The uniformly luminous application of colour in various tones of violet and green underlines this harmonious effect and actually causes a cool breeze to move through the summer ambience. The setting, with the small garden bench and the floral pattern of the cushions before the backdrop of the lake and the rhododendron bush, reappears in almost identical form in Cucuel's portrait of his wife, the painter Clara-Lotte von Marcard-Cucuel - including even such details as a similarly decorated hat and the skirt trimmed with black lace.