Galerie Alfred Gunzenhauser, Munich
Galerie Grosshennig, Dusseldorf
Galerie Heuser, Düsseldorf
Acquired from the above by the present owner circa 1996

Maria Jawlensky, Lucia Pieroni-Jawlensky & Angelica Jawlensky, Alexej von Jawlensky: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings 1890-1914, London, 1991, vol. I, no. 185, illustrated p. 162

The board is stable. There is a L-shaped line of retouching to cover a scratch in the top right corner, three short lines towards the centre of the right edge, two lines to the upper centre of the left edge, and two 3cm. lines of retouching to the bottom left corner. All retouching is visible under UV light. There is a light horizontal crease running across the lower centre of the board and several small creases throughout the top right quadrant. This work is in fairly good condition. Colours: Overall deeper and richer, the reds are more subtle in the original.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

In the summer of 1905 Jawlensky started to develop a distinctive style, influenced by the work of Van G🐼ogh, Cézanne, and Matisse, with whom he had become acquainted earlier that year. Upon his return to Munich, Jawlensky struck up a friendship with Father Willibrord Verkade, an artist and monk who had known Gauguin and belonged to the circle of the Nabis. This resulted in an introduction in 1907 to Sérusier, the 'arch-Nabi', who arrived in Munich in December and rented a studio there for 3 months.

The present work illustrates the vivid impression these artists produced on Jawlensky. The vigorous, broken brush marks are symptomatic of Nabi preoccupation with surface pattern, yet the patchwork of bright, almost Fauvist colours represent Jawlensky's personal preoccupation with the emotive power of colour. Jawlensky appears to have clarified his relationship with the Symbolist ethos that he had been so exposed to in his first years in Munich: although impressed by Symbolist ideology, he remained always occupied by more formal, colouristic problems. His work was based on his impressions of nature - transformed by his own sensibility, but not to pure abstraction. In his memoirs, Jawlensky recalls his interest in painting still-lives at that time: 'I tried in these still-life paintings to go beyond the material objects and express in colour and form the thing which was vibrating within me...' (quoted in M. Jawlensky, L-P. Jawlensky & A. Jawlensky, op.cit., London, 1991, vol. 1, p. 30).