Lament for Icarus by Draper

Herbert James Draper (1864-1920) :: Study of Florrie Bird for Naiad in The Lament for Icarus. Black and white chalks on grey paper.
Signed ‘Herbert Draper’ (lower left), inscribed with title (centre right). | src Bonhams
Herbert Draper (1863–1920) :: The Lament for Icarus, exhibited 1898. Oil on canvas. | DETAIL
Herbert Draper (1863–1920) :: The Lament for Icarus, exhibited 1898. Oil on canvas. | Tate Britain

Girl by a Pool · Herbert Draper

Herbert James Draper :: A Young Girl by a Pool, oil on canvas, signed 'H.J.DRAPER' (lower left), probably 1892-93. | src Bonhams
Herbert James Draper :: A Young Girl by a Pool, oil on canvas, signed ‘H.J.DRAPER’ (lower left), probably 1892-93. | src Bonhams

Although not recorded in Simon Toll’s catalogue raisonné on Draper, the present lot can probably be dated to 1892-93, when the artist was working in Rome. There are a number of related studies for the work, one of which, entitled ‘Pompilia’, depicts a girl in a similar crocheted cap (illustrated p.79, no. 33). The work can also be compared with other paintings of this period, such as ‘Love in the Garden of Philetas’ (RA 1892) and ‘The Spirit of the Fountain’ (1893), where flowers and ornamental gardens appear as popular motifs. | quoted from Bonhams London

Herbert James Draper :: A Young Girl by a Pool, oil on canvas, signed 'H.J.DRAPER' (lower left), probably 1892-93. | src Bonhams | DETAIL
Herbert James Draper :: A Young Girl by a Pool, oil on canvas; probably 1892-93. (DETAIL)

Lady at a river · ink on silk

chinese art, chinese artist
Junge Dame an einem Fluss - Young lady at a river. From a collection of four Chinese silk paintings. Pen and ink on silk, heightened with watercolours and gouache; mounted on backing, partly with silk border. | src Jeschke van Vliet · Jádi Berlin
Junge Dame an einem Fluss – Young lady at a river. From a collection of four Chinese silk paintings. Pen and ink on silk, heightened with watercolours and gouache; mounted on backing, partly with silk border. | src Jeschke van Vliet · Jádi Berlin
Junge Dame an einem Fluss - Young lady at a river. From a collection of four Chinese silk paintings. Pen and ink on silk, heightened with watercolours and gouache; mounted on backing, partly with silk border. | src Jeschke van Vliet · Jádi Berlin
Junge Dame an einem Fluss – Young lady at a river. From a collection of four Chinese silk paintings. | Detail

Geesje Kwak in Kimono, 1893-96

George Hendrik Breitner :: Girl in a White Kimono | Een meisje gekleed in een kimono, achterover liggend op een bank. Waarschijnlijk het model Geesje Kwak. | date: 1894. Oil on canvas. | src Rijksmuseum
George Hendrik Breitner :: Girl in a White Kimono | Meisje in witte kimono. Een meisje gekleed in een kimono, achterover liggend op een bank. Waarschijnlijk het model Geesje Kwak. | date: 1894. Oil on canvas. | src Rijksmuseum

Inspired by Japanese prints, between 1893 and 1896 Breitner made thirteen paintings of a girl in a kimono. She assumes different poses and the kimono often has a different colour. What catches the eye here is the embroidered, white silk kimono with red-trimmed sleeves and an orange sash. The dreamy girl is sixteen-year-old Geesje Kwak, a seamstress and one of Breitner’s regular models. [quoted from Rijksmuseum]

George Hendrik Breitner :: Girl in a red kimono (Geesje Kwak) | Meisje in rode kimono, rechts gedraaid; oil on canvas, ca. 1893. | src Kunstmuseum Den Haag
George Hendrik Breitner :: Girl in a red kimono (Geesje Kwak) | Meisje in rode kimono, rechts gedraaid; oil on canvas, ca. 1893. | src Kunstmuseum Den Haag

The Girl in a Kimono series was not a success with critics initially, but today they are considered the pinnacle of the Dutch expression of Japonisme in the fine arts. The Rijksmuseum celebrated the series in 2016 with an exhibition that brought together all of the Girl in a Kimono paintings: “Breitner: meisje in kimono”.

George Hendrik Breitner :: Girl in a red kimono (Geesje Kwak) | Meisje in rode kimono, liggend; oil on canvas, ca. 1896. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
George Hendrik Breitner :: Girl in a red kimono (Geesje Kwak) | Meisje in rode kimono, liggend; oil on canvas, ca. 1896. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
George Hendrik Breitner :: Girl in a red kimono (Geesje Kwak) | Meisje in rode kimono, links gedraaid; oil on canvas, ca. 1893. | src Beverly A. Mitchell
George Hendrik Breitner :: Girl in a red kimono (Geesje Kwak) | Meisje in rode kimono, links gedraaid; oil on canvas, ca. 1893. | src Beverly A. Mitchell

After the reopening of Japan to foreign trade in the 1850s and 1860s, European artists like Claude Monet, James McNeill Whistler and Vincent van Gogh were influenced by Japanese fine and decorative arts. One of Van Gogh’s friends and compatriots, George Hendrik Breitner, was inspired by the Japonisme trend to create a series of 13 paintings of a young girl wearing a kimono.

Breitner was born in Rotterdam in 1857. For the decade between 1876 and 1886 he studied and worked in The Hague where he explored working class areas of the city, sketching the people and places he encountered. He embraced the social realism movement and considered himself le peintre du peuple, the painter of the people. He moved to Amsterdam in 1886 where he was soon able to add photography to drawing and painting. Breitner took pictures of street life, people at work and going about their business in the city, some of the photographs reminiscent of the kind of work Jacob Riis was doing in the crowded and scary tenements of New York City at the same time.

Breitner was one of the first artists to use photos as studies for specific paintings, not just of street scenes but in the studio as well. He integrated his social realist perspective in his studio portraits, making a point of employing models from the working class. One of them was a milliner’s shopgirl named Geesje Kwak who, along with her sister Anna, posed for Breitner in around 1893-1895 when she was 16-18 years old. It was Geesje Kwak who would be immortalized as the girl in a kimono.

Japonisme had intrigued Breitner since he’d traveled to Paris in 1884. He collected Japanese woodcuts and in 1892 visited an exhibition of Japanese prints in The Hague. The show was his immediate inspiration for the kimono series. He acquired several Japanese kimonos and a pair of folding screens that he set up in his studio on the Lauriergracht canal. Geesje Kwak posed in the kimonos — one red, one white, one blue — against the backdrop of the folding screens on a bed draped in oriental rugs. She was paid for her time and there was no hanky panky going on; all strictly professional. Breitner kept meticulous records of which models posed for him when, for how long and at what rate.

Breitner’s work with Geesje Kwak ended when she emigrated to South Africa with her younger sister Niesje in 1895. Geesje died of tuberculosis in Pretoria in 1899, just shy of her 22nd birthday. quoted from The History Blog

Frühling ~ Träume II (1912)

Heinrich Vogeler :: Träume II (auch ,Frühling‘ oder ,Erwartung‘) | Dream II (also Spring or Contemplation), 1912.
Heinrich Vogeler :: Träume II (auch ,Frühling‘ oder ,Erwartung‘) | Dream II (also Spring or Contemplation), 1912. Monogrammed, inscribed and dated lower right in the coat of arms: HV W 1912. Signed and titled on the stretcher on the right: H Vogeler. Frühling. Oil on canvas. | src Grisebach · Ausgewählte Werke, 10. Juni 2021

Clotilde von Derp by Watson

George Spencer Watson (1869-1934) :: Portrait of Clotilda [sic] von Derp (Frau Sakharoff), 1912. Signed, inscribed and dated ‘Clotilda [sic] von Derp / [Frau Sakharoff.] / Dancer 1912 / by George Spencer Watson R.A.’ (on the backboard). Oil on canvas laid down on board. | src Christie’s

Finnish Elegia, ca. 1899

Hugo Simberg :: Suomalainen elegia [Finnish Elegia], ca. 1899. Glass negative. Tempera painting, attached to a pontoon wall. | src Kansallisgalleria · Finnish National Gallery

Valeska Gert by Mammen / Kainer

Valeska Gert, gemalt von Jeanne Mammen; 1928-1929 © Berlinische Galerie. | src Welt.de
Ludwig Kainer :: Valeska Gert. Groteske Tänze. Plakat. 1917. Das Plakat, Mai-Juli 1918

Bildnis. Emilie Flöge, 1902

Gustav Klimt (1862—1918) :: Bildnis Emilie Flöge, 1902. Leinwand. Ölfarbe. (oil on canvas) | src Wien Museum
Moriz Nähr (1859-1945) :: Gemälde ‘Emilie Flöge’ (1902-03) von Gustav Klimt. Schwarz-Weiß-Negativ. | src ÖNB