작품 상세

Oil on canvas 95.3 x 75.5 cm, framed. Signed 'Slevogt' lower right. - In good condition, colours still fresh. The area of the sky with a small retouch as well as slight craqueleur with very few tiny losses of colour. Imiela annotation 4, p. 420, there dated "1916" With a photo certificate by Hans-Jürgen Imiela, Mainz, dated 27 June 2001 Provenance Collection Dr. Karl Zitzmann, Erlangen; auction sale Paul Cassirer and Hugo Helbing, Die Sammlung eines süddeutschen Kunstfreundes, Berlin, 3/4 March 1925, cat. no. 137, plate 58; private possession Switzerland; Lempertz cologne, auction 520, 1st December 1971, lot 1054; private possession; Lempertz Cologne, auction 549, 5 December 1975, lot 690, plate 22; private collection Rhineland-Palatinate Exhibition Munich 1922 (Moderne Galerie Thannhauser), Max Slevogt, cat. no. 11, without illus. According to information kindly provided by Bernhard Geil, the work was not created in the 1910s, as indicated by Imiela, but around 1921. It is very probably connected with the cycle of prints "Im Sonnenbad" (The Sunbath), which Slevogt etched at Neukastel in 1922 (cf. Söhn 559-568). The Neukastel estate, now called the "Slevogthof", originally belonged to the family of Slevogt's childhood friend Antonie Finkler; it lies on the southern Wine Route next to the Palatinate Forest. The artist had been a regular guest there since the end of the 1880s, as is demonstrated by the Neukastel landscapes to be found in his oeuvre from around 1888 onwards. After marrying Antonie "Nini" Finkler in 1889, Slevogt finally purchased the estate in 1914 and converted it into his summer residence. During the First World War, Neukastel became a place of refuge for the Slevogt family, which fled the gloomy situation in Berlin - with its increasingly difficult living and working conditions - as often as possible. There is no trace of the events of the war in the numerous views created of the Neukastel garden and its immediate surroundings at this time. During and after the war, numerous views of the garden and the neighbouring countryside were created at Neukastel. In many of these works members of the family and friends have been captured in casual and natural poses while going about their everyday tasks in idyllic surroundings. Particular emphasis is placed on the depiction of the seasons, whose typical lighting and colours fundamentally define the general mood of the paintings. Our "Sonnenbad" (Sunbath) particularly clearly exemplifies the private atmosphere of these works. Shimmering with light and bathed in the most vibrant summer colours, the image shows a part of the garden, where three men - wearing at most a hat to protect them from the sun - take advantage of their seclusion to enjoy an extended sunbath. Within the masterfully executed, airy summer landscape, the depicted situation among the sunbathers utterly at ease possesses a certain comic effect, which also testifies to the carefree interaction between the familiar circle of the Slevogt's family and friends.