Bernhard Hoetger

Dr Heinrich Tramm collection, Hannover

Overall the condition of the marble is excellent with some minor wear to the surface consistent with age.
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It took a long period of poverty in Paris culminating in serious illness for Hoetger to 'end the path walked with Rodin... and slowly wander towards the great monumental things.' This new direction, taken around 1905, would result in some of the sculptor's finest work and much more acclaim. The style of this portrait bust belongs to this time of awakening; similar busts representing his wife Helena and her sister were created in 1905-6. The carving in these busts concentrates on line and contour, volumes are derived from elemental shapes and the surface is kept 'simple, suppressed'. In this abstraction the sitter's beauty and femininity moved away from anecdotal and assumed Hoetger's 'Ideal des Plastikers'.

The sitter for this portrait is Olga Polna, a Polish singer from the court theatre in Hanover and the second wife of Dr. Heinrich Tramm. Under the direction of the painter Max Liebermann, Dr. Tramm amassed an important collection of contemporary art in the late 19^th-and early 20^th century. Hoetger's bust was part of the Tramm collection until the late 1990s.

This marble has been authenticated by Annelene Tramm.

RELATED LITERATURE
Bernhard Hoetger, pp. 10 and 36-38; Anczykowski, cat. 258