The Duchess of Montesquiou-Fezensac is a 1910 oilportrait by Oskar Kokoschka. In this expressionist work Kokoschka strove to capture the essence of his sitter, a young noblewoman afflicted with tuberculosis, with somber tones and stylized gestures. Among his early portraits, Kokoschka considered the work his most valuable, and as his first work to be acquired by a museum it played a key role in establishing the young artist's reputation. During the Nazi period it was confiscated from the Museum Folkwang in Essen and pilloried in the Degenerate Art exhibition before being auctioned off. It is currently in the collection of the Cincinnati Art Museum.
At his debut at the Vienna Kunstschau 1908, Kokoschka exhibited several provocative proto-expressionistic works, in particular The Dreaming Youths (Die Träumenden Knaben), an illustrated poem laden with sexually charged angst.[2]Gustav Klimt and other leaders of the Secession defended Kokoschka from critics, who labeled him the "chief wild man" of the Kunstschau and blamed him for its financial failure.[2][3]
Kokoschka further scandalized Viennese polite society with the 1909 debut of his play Murderer, the Hope of Women, which with its dramatic and disturbing costumes and violent sexual imagery was among the first Expressionist dramas.[2] By some accounts the debut ended in a near-riot.[2] Under pressure from above, the director of the School of Arts and Crafts Alfred Roller removed Kokoschka's stipend and expelled him from the School.[2] It was rumored that Kokoschka had drawn the ire of Archduke Franz Ferdinand himself.[4]
While Murderer cost Kokoschka his income, it also brought him to the attention of Adolf Loos, a pioneering architect who opposed what he perceived as the superficiality and ornamental excess of the Secession.[5] In Kokoschka Loos saw a potential ally in his war on ornament, and supported the younger artist by buying artwork from him and introducing him to the rest of his intellectual circle. Loos hit upon the idea of portrait painting as a way for Kokoschka to earn commissions, and encouraged his friends and acquaintances to sit for Kokoschka with the guarantee that he would buy any portrait that the sitter did not like.[5]
In late 1909 Kokoschka accompanied Loos to Switzerland to paint a portrait of Loos's girlfriend Bessie Bruce, who was being treated for tuberculosis in a sanitarium there.[6] Kokoschka ended up staying the entirety of winter 1909-10 in Switzerland, a period that was "extremely fruitful" for him.[7] Thanks to Loos's tireless promotion[8] he would end up painting at least five other portraits while there, among them The Duchess of Montesquiou-Fezensac.[9]
Victoire de Montesquiou-Fezensac was born Victoire Laure Anna Masséna de Rivoli d'Essling in 1888, the second child of Victor Masséna[fr] and Paule Heine. Her grandparents on her father's side were the ornithologist Francois Victor Massena and courtier Anne d'Essling; and her great-grandfather was Marshal of the EmpireAndré Masséna. In 1907 she married Joseph Marquis de Montesquiou-Fezensac,[10] a member of the Montesquiou family who would go on to become Duc de Fezensac in 1913.[11]
When Kokoschka arrived at the Swiss sanitarium to paint Bessie's portrait the Duchess and her husband were there undergoing treatment for tuberculosis. Kokoschka later recalled their meeting:
In Les Avants I painted a portrait of Bessy Loos [sic] and was introduced by her to the marquise and marquis of Rohan-Montesquieu. She was a marvelously thin, tall, pale creature and wore a black velvet two-piece which made her look even thinner. She was consumptive and seemed to me so beautiful that I immediately fell head over heels in love with her [...] There was a rumor that he [her husband] was at times rather rough with her; she herself once hinted at something of the kind when she did the honor of showing me her room. With its quiet, sad atmosphere and yellowing photographs on the wall it suited her well. —Oskar Kokoschka,Stories from My Life,pp. 55-56
Despite her haggard appearance, the Duchess was only 22 at the time the portrait was painted. She never recovered from her condition and died in 1919 at the age of 30.[10]
The Duchess is depicted in half length, standing or perhaps leaning in front of an undefined dark background. She wears an elegant evening gown with a square neckline and a simple pearl choker. Her downturned face has a pensive expression; her features are thin and worn, prematurely aged by the disease ravaging her body. Her right hand holds a handkerchief, her left rests at waist height, contorted into an anatomically impossible position.[10] There is no apparent light source; rather, she appears to glow softly from within.[12]
Kokoschka emphasizes the contrast between the Duchess's ravaged body and that lambent inwardness, seeing in her a reflection of "...those aristocratic women who used to seek consolation in their faith, back in the days of religious upheavals when the world was so godless that only mystics still believed in paradise, which they placed in their own hearts."[13] This kind of idealization was a common trope in fin-de-siècle thought - the "consumptive sublime," in which "women enveloped in illness were the visual equivalents of spiritual purity."[14]
Kokoschka's contemporaries contrasted the Duchess with Klimt's decorative, glamorous high-society portraits. "Why did I think of Klimt all of a sudden?" Else Lasker-Schüler wrote upon viewing it, "He is a botanist, Kokoschka a planter. Where Klimt picks a flower, Kokoschka pulls up the plant by the roots."[10]
Along with the rest of Kokoschka's early portraits, the Duchess thus marks a departure from the formalized, surface-oriented portraiture then current in fin-de-siècle Vienna, where "representation had adopted a particularly referential position... portraits represented no one; they represent someone as some one else."[15] Instead, "...no one in Kokoschka's early portraits is represented, as the conventions of the times demanded, in a manner befitting social status - not gloriously, charitably, or even realistically."[16] Kokoschka's goal in this was to create "a new kind of psychological portraiture" in which the essence of the subject was isolated and expressed.[17]
Provenance
A page from the exhibition catalog of Degenerate Art mocking Kokoschka. "Which of these three drawings is the dabbling of an insane asylum inhabitant? Surprise - it's the top right one! The others were previously described as Kokoschka's masterworks."
None of the people who agreed to sit for Kokoschka during his Switzerland trip decided to purchase the resulting portraits, including the Duchess and her husband.[18] Instead, the portraits were exhibited in June 1910 at Galerie Paul Cassirer in Berlin in a show organized by Herwarth Walden at Loos's urging.[19] At one point the painting was temporarily misplaced in transit to Berlin; Kokoschka desperately wrote Walden asking to be informed as soon as it was found, stating "it is my most valuable picture."[10] The Duchess's portrait was shown under the title A Precious Woman; her husband's A Brutal Egoist.[20]
The Berlin exhibition proved successful, and the portrait of the Duchess was purchased by Karl Ernst Osthaus for the Folkwang Museum in Hagen.[21] It was Kokoschka's first artwork to be acquired by a museum; an important step in the 24-year-old artist's career.[10] After Osthaus's death in 1921 his museum's collection was purchased by the City of Essen and merged with the Essener Kunstmuseum, forming the Museum Folkwang in 1922.[21]
The portrait of the Duchess's husband, Marquis Joseph de Montesquiou-Fezensac, which had also been looted by the Nazis and auctioned off, ended up in the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.[25] In 2018 it was restituted to the heirs of the original owner Alfred Flechtheim,[26] who then sold it for $20 million.[27]
However, the Museum Folkwang and other state-owned German museums affected by Nazi looting have generally not tried to reclaim works such as the Duchess because at the time, the works of art were the property of the German government, and their removal and sale was legal under German law.[28]
Gustav Klimt was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism. Amongst his figurative works, which include allegories and portraits, he painted landscapes. Among the artists of the Vienna Secession, Klimt was the most influenced by Japanese art and its methods.
Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele was an Austrian Expressionist painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude self-portraits. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele's paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism. Gustav Klimt, a figurative painter of the early 20th century, was a mentor to Schiele.
Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expressionist movement.
The Neue Galerie New York is a museum of early twentieth-century German and Austrian art and design located in the William Starr Miller House at 86th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City. Established in 2001, it is one of the most recent additions to New York City's famed Museum Mile, which runs from 83rd to 105th streets on Fifth Avenue in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
The Österreichische Galerie Belvedere is a museum housed in the Belvedere palace, in Vienna, Austria.
The Leopold Museum, housed in the Museumsquartier in Vienna, Austria, is home to one of the largest collections of modern Austrian art, featuring artists such as Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, and Richard Gerstl.
The Kiss is an oil-on-canvas painting with added gold leaf, silver and platinum by the Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt. It was painted at some point in 1907 and 1908, during the height of what scholars call his "Golden Period". It was exhibited in 1908 under the title Liebespaar as stated in the catalogue of the exhibition. The painting depicts a couple embracing each other, their bodies entwined in elaborate beautiful robes decorated in a style influenced by the contemporary Art Nouveau style and the organic forms of the earlier Arts and Crafts movement.
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I is a painting by Gustav Klimt, completed between 1903 and 1907. The portrait was commissioned by the sitter's husband, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a Jewish banker and sugar producer. The painting was stolen by the Nazis in 1941 and displayed at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna. The portrait is the final and most fully representative work of Klimt's golden phase. It was the first of two depictions of Adele by Klimt—the second was completed in 1912; these were two of several works by the artist that the family owned.
Tobias G. Natter is an Austrian art historian and internationally renowned art expert with a particular expertise in "Vienna 1900".
Emilie Louise Flöge was an Austrian fashion designer and businesswoman. She was the life companion of the painter Gustav Klimt.
Alfred Flechtheim was a German Jewish art dealer, art collector, journalist and publisher persecuted by the Nazis.
Serena (Szeréna) Pulitzer Lederer was an Austro-Hungarian art collector and the spouse of the industrial magnate August Lederer, close friend of Gustav Klimt and instrumental in the constitution of the collection of Klimt's art pieces.
Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900 was an exhibition at the National Gallery, London, running from 9 October 2013 through to 12 January 2014.
Galerie St. Etienne is a New York art gallery specializing in Austrian and German Expressionism, established in Vienna in 1939 by Otto Kallir. In 1923, Kallir founded the Neue Galerie in Vienna. Forced to leave Austria after the 1938 Nazi invasion, Kallir established his gallery in Paris as the Galerie St. Etienne, named after the Neue Galerie's location near Vienna's Cathedral of St. Stephen. In 1939, Kallir and his family left France for the United States, moving the Galerie St. Etienne to New York City. The gallery still exists, run by Otto Kallir's granddaughter Jane at 24 West 57th Street.
Max Oppenheimer, later known as MOPP, was an Austrian painter and graphic artist.
Franz von Zülow was an Austrian graphic artist and painter whose experimentation resulted in several new printing and design methods. He was a member of the Vienna Secession, the Wiener Werkstatte, and the Zinkerbach Artist Colony. He is the brother of the ceramicist Maria von Zülow and the father of the architect and painter Franz Joachim Zülow.
Oscar Reichel was an Austrian physician and art collector. His work was confiscated by the Nazis during World War II, leading to claims from his descendants to restore it to them.
In 1939 the Gallery Fischer in Lucerne organized an auction of degenerate art confiscated by the Nazis. The auction took place on 30 June 1939 in the Grand Hotel National. The auction received considerable international interest, but many of the bidders who were expected to attend were absent because they were worried the proceeds would be used by the Nazi regime.
Hugo Haberfeld, was an Austrian Jewish art dealer, who owned the Miethke Gallery in early 20th century Vienna. When Austria joined Nazi Germany in the 1938 Anschluss, Haberfeld fled to Paris.
References
Barron, Stephanie (1991). "The Galerie Fischer Auction". In Barron, Stephanie (ed.). "Degenerate Art": The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art. pp.139–169. ISBN0875871585.
Dijkstra, Bram (1988). Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-Siècle Culture. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN9780195056525.
Kokoschka, Oskar (1998). Stories from My Life. Translated by Mitchell, Michael. Riverside: Ariadne Press. ISBN9781572410626.
Kokoschka, Oskar (1974). My Life. Translated by Britt, David. New York: MacMillan. ISBN9780500010877.
Natter, Tobias G. (2002). "Portraits of Characters, Not Portraits of Faces:An Introduction to Kokoschka's Early Portraits.". In Natter, Tobias G. (ed.). Oskar Kokoschka's Early Portraits from Vienna and Berlin 1909-1914. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp.88–181. ISBN9780300095562.
Shapira, Elena (2002). "The Pioneers: Loos, Kokoschka, and Their Shared Clients". In Natter, Tobias G. (ed.). Oskar Kokoschka's Early Portraits from Vienna and Berlin 1909-1914. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp.50–60. ISBN9780300095562.
Trummer, Thomas (2002). "'A Sea Ringed About With Visions': On Cryptotheology and Philosophy of Life in Kokoschka's Early Portraits.". In Natter, Tobias G. (ed.). Oskar Kokoschka's Early Portraits from Vienna and Berlin 1909-1914. Translated by Kimberly, Duenwald. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp.37–42. ISBN9780300095562.
Vergo, Peter (1975). Art in Vienna 1898-1918: Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele, and their contemporaries. London: Phaidon. ISBN0714816000.
Von Luttichau, Mario Andreas (1991). "Degenerate Art, Munich 1937: A Reconstruction". In Barron, Stephanie (ed.). "Degenerate Art": The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art. pp.45–82. ISBN0875871585.
Whitford, Frank (1986). Oskar Kokoschka: A Life. New York: Atheneum. ISBN9780297787181.
Cernuschi, Claude (2002). "Anatomical Dissection and Religious Identification: A Wittgensteinian Response to Kokoschka's Alternative Paradigms for Truth in His Self-Portraiture Prior to World War I.". In Natter, Tobias G. (ed.). Oskar Kokoschka's Early Portraits from Vienna and Berlin 1909-1914. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp.43–49. ISBN9780300095562.
Petropoulos, Jonathan (2014). "From Lucerne to Washington, DC: 'Degenerate Art' and the Question of Restitution". In Peters, Olaf (ed.). Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937. Munich: Prestel Verlag. pp.282–301. ISBN9783791353678.
Kokoschka, Oskar (1992). Kokoschka, Olda; Murnau, Alfred (eds.). Oskar Kokoschka Letters 1905-1976. 1992: Thames and Hudson. ISBN9780500015285.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
Weidinger, Alfred (2008). Kokoschka: Träumender Knabe - Enfant Terrible. Weitra: Bibliothek der Provinz. ISBN9783901508370.
Werner, Patrick (2002). "Gestures in Oskar Kokoschka's Early Portraits". In Natter, Tobias G. (ed.). Oskar Kokoschka's Early Portraits from Vienna and Berlin 1909-1914. Translated by Michael, Scuffil. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp.31–36. ISBN9780300095562.
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