Max Klinger
Bildnisbüste Friedrich Nietzsche
From 1904
Bronze bust, mounted on yellow marble base (2.5 x 15.5 x 10 cm) Height 21 cm Signed 'M. KLINGER' on shaft of herm lower left and inscribed verso "AKT. GES.... H. GLADENBECK...SOHN BERLIN=FRIEDRICHSHAGEN." - Anthracite-coloured, shiny patina. Inconspicuous minor rubbing on forehead and chest.
Reduced bronze bust after the herm-like monumental marble version for the Nietzsche Archive Weimar (Weimar, Stiftung Weimarer Klassik, Nietzsche-Archiv).
"Since 1904, Gladenbeck AG of Berlin produced bronze reductions of the so-called "Archivherme", authorized by Klinger, height 22 cm resp. 38 cm, on marble bases of 3 to 4 cm in height." (Max Klinger Bestandskatalog Leipzig, op. cit. p. 70).
Provenance
Private collection, South Germany
Literature
Max Schmid, Max Klinger (Künstler-Monographien, Bielefeld/Leipzig 1906, p. 133, illus. 104 (bust); Jürgen Krause, "Märtyrer" und "Prophet". Studien zum Nietzsche-Kult in der Bildenden Kunst der Jahrhundertwende, Berlin/New York 1984, cf. p. 186 with annot. 780, cf. nos. 42 - 45 and 46, 47; Gerhard Winkler, Max Klinger, Leipzig 1984, cf. no. 195 with illus.; Herwig Guratzsch (ed.), Max Klinger, Bestandskatalog der Bildwerke, Gemälde und Zeichnungen im Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, Leipzig 1995, cf. no. A 21 (Totenmaske Friedrich Nietzsche 1901) and no. A 24, each with illus.