Lovis Corinth - Porträt Charlotte Corinth in brauner Bluse - image-1

Lot 660 Dα

Lovis Corinth - Porträt Charlotte Corinth in brauner Bluse

Auction 1013 - overview Cologne
25.05.2013, 11:30 - Modern Art May 25 2013
Estimate: 80.000 € - 120.000 €
Result: 91.500 € (incl. premium)

Lovis Corinth

Porträt Charlotte Corinth in brauner Bluse
1910

Öl auf Leinwand (doubliert) 105 x 85 cm LOVIS CORINTH 1910

Rau Collection for UNICEF

Lovis Corinth met Charlotte Berend in 1901, when the 21-year-old showed him her drawings for assessment. She was to become the first student at the painting school which had been opened by the artist in Klopstockstrasse in Berlin. Quite soon a love affair developed between the teacher and his student, and this is also reflected in Corinth's oeuvre: From 1902 Charlotte Berend featured in a variety of pictures - double portraits, nude paintings, Charlotte while painting, playing and joking and in other everyday situations, always in an atmosphere of cheerful intimacy. In 1903 Lovis and Charlotte got married, and a year later their son was born.

Our portrait shows Charlotte at the age of 30, when she was a mother of two children. Despite her elegant clothes and rich golden jewellery, there is an unpretentious girlishness about her. With a lively, bemused expression on her face, a slight inclination of her head and her hand resting on her hip, she comes across to us as spontaneous and relaxed. Here, too, we can feel the painter's openness and loving intimacy which unites him with his favourite model.

One particularly pleasant aesthetic appeal of the painting is the contrast between warm and cold colours. The bright blue fabric behind the figure is effectively different from the warm tones of gold on Charlotte's blouse and her jewellery. In particular these contrasts serve to highlight the bright, rosy flesh tone, underlining the youthful freshness that comes from the portrait subject.

Provenance

Collection Dr. Rudolf Cohn, Königsberg; Karl & Faber, Munich, 100th Auction, Graphik, Handzeichnungen, Aquarelle und Gemälde des 15.-20. Jahrhunderts, 17 May 1966, lot 226

Literature

Paula Steiner (ed.), Lovis Corinth, dem Ostpreußen, Königsberg 1925, no. 22 with illus. p. 92, here titled 'Damenbildnis'

Exhibitions

Königsberg 1924 (Kunstsammlung); Berlin 1926 (Nationalgalerie), Lovis Corinth. Ausstellung von Gemälden und Aquarellen zu seinem Gedächtnis, cat. no. 167; Dresden 1927 (Sächsischer Kunstverein, Brühlsche Terrasse), Lovis Corinth, Gedächtnisausstellung, cat. no. 56