Max Liebermann

Dr Gustav Kirstein, Leipzig (acquired by 1914)

Clara Kirstein, Leipzig (by inheritance from her husband Dr Gustav Kirstein in February 1934)

Gabriella Jacobsen (née Kirstein) & Marianna Bear (née Kirstein) (by inheritance from the above in June 1939)

Confiscated by the Nazis in August 1941 and ownership forfeited to the German Reich in November 1941 by whom sold through C. G. Boerner to Hermann Voss for the Sonderauftrag Linz (Special Commission Linz) in June 1943

Sale: Galerie Fischer, Lucerne, 11th September 1943, lot 813 (with incorrect provenance; unsold)

Hans Sorraperra-Blattmann, Zurich (bought privately from Galerie Fischer)

Estate of the above (sold: Kunsthaus Lempertz, Cologne, 21st May 1977, lot 352)

Private Collection (purchased at the above sale)

Corporate Collection, Hamburg (acquired by 1978)

Restituted to the heirs of Dr Gustav & Clara Kirstein in 2013

Zurich, Kunsthaus, Max Liebermann, 1923, no. 79, illustrated in the catalogue

Schaffhausen, Museum zu Allerheiligen, Deutsche Impressionisten, Liebermann - Corinth - Slevogt, 1955, no. 33

Berlin, Nationalgalerie & Munich, Haus der Kunst, Max Liebermann in seiner Zeit, 1979-80, no. 104, illustrated in colour in the catalogue (as dating from 1911)

Berlin, Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin - Centrum Judaicum, Was vom Leben übrig bleibt, sind Bilder und Geschichten: Max Liebermann zum 150. Geburtstag, 1997, illustrated in the catalogue

Achberg, Schloss Achberg, Max Liebermann und der deutsche Impressionismus, 2013, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Erich Hancke, Max Liebermann. Sein Leben und seine Werke, Berlin, 1914, mentioned p. 480 & 545

Erich Hancke, Max Liebermann. Sein Leben und seine Werke, Berlin, 1923, mentioned p. 480

Weltkunst, vol. XLVII, 1977, illustrated p. 939

Matthias Eberle, Max Liebermann, Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde und Ölstudien, Munich, 1996, vol. II, no. 1910/11, illustrated p. 794

The canvas is unlined and there is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. Apart from some very slight stable craquelure in the middle of the composition, this work is in very good original condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although the blues are stronger and the browns are less yellow in the original.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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."

The first recorded owner of Liebermann’s Sommerabend an der Alster was Dr Gustav Kirstein, who acquired the work by 1914. Kirstein was a co-owner of the well-known art publishing house E. A. Seamann and chairman of the Leipzig Museum Association. A friend and patron to many leading contemporary artists of the day, including Liebermann, Lovis Corinth and Max Klinger, he was especially supportive of Klinger with whom he had worked on a publication of his graphic works. In 1933 he was forced to relinquish his business and charitable positions due to his Jewish origins. At his death in 1934 his sizable art collection was inherited by his widow Clara Kirstein. Tragically, after a failed attempt to leave Germany in 1939, which was foiled by the Gestapo, she was informed of her impending deportation to Theresienstadt, and so she took her own life. Sommerabend an der Alster was confiscated by the Nazis in August 1941 and sold through C. G. Boerner to Hermann Voss for the Sonderauftrag Linz (Special Commission Linz) in June 1943. It was subsequently consigned to the Galerie Fischer under a false provenance, and eventually made its way through several collections before being restituted to the heirs of Dr Gustav and Clara Kirstein in 2013.

Max Liebermann - Sommerabend an der Alster

Liebermann’s lively depiction of boaters on the Alster river marks the Impressionist-inspired style for which his art is now celebrated. Painted in 1910 while the artist was at the height of his influence, this picture epitomises Liebermann’s modernist spirit and his rejection of German academic tradition. Liebermann was the president of the Berlin Secession and a figurehead for avant-garde culture in Germany, and his approach to painting reflected the radical new modes of representation that were being championed throughout Europe. Although Liebermann has inscribed the present work with the date 1911, Erich Hancke and Matthias Eberle have both attributed it to 1910, the year Liebermann painted the other two closely related compositions: An der Alster in Hamburg, now in the collection of Gemäldegalerie Neue Meister in Dresden (fig. 1), and Abend am Uhlenhorster Fährhaus – Sommerabend an der Alster now in the collection of Hamburger Kunsthalle.

 

Aligned in his aesthetic practice to Claude Monet, who was a corresponding member of the Berlin Secession, Liebermann approached his paintings with a spontaneity and palette that was clearly indebted to the French Impressionists. His subject matter, which included scenes of leisure life in northern Germany and Holland, were specific to his own personal predilections. ‘In my daily habits, I am completely bourgeois,’ Liebermann once remarked, ‘I eat, drink, sleep and go for walks and work with the regularity of a church clock. I live in my parents’ house where I spent my childhood, and it would be difficult for me to live elsewhere’ (quoted in Barbara C. Gilbert, Max Liebermann, From Realism to Impressionism (exhibition catalogue), Skirball Center, Los Angeles & Jewish Museum, New York, 2005-06, p. 41).

 

The present work depicts a scene that Liebermann encountered on holiday with his wife Martha and their children: leisure boaters on the Alster, the right tributary of the Elbe river in the north of Germany, which is dammed to form a lake in Hamburg. Several of the boaters fly the black, red and white flag of pre-war Germany, with the spires of Hamburg visible in the distance. Although specifically German in its scenery, the depiction of the beau monde enjoying leisurely time on the river calls to mind the regattas on the Seine painted by Monet in the 1870s, as well as Renoir’s treatment of similar subjects in his famous Luncheon of the Boating Party of 1880-81 and Rowers at Chatou of the same date (fig. 2).

 

Barbara C. Gilbert has written about Liebermann’s production at the turn of the century, when his style was at its most experimental: ‘Although Liebermann was preoccupied by his duties in the Berlin Secession from 1899 until 1911, this phase proved to be the most adventuresome and experimental of his painting career. He had achieved his most inventive and exuberant body of work, in a series that explored aspects of painting beyond a direct portrayal of a subject. […] This more experimental period of Liebermann’s career coincides with his expanding rise as an art theorist and writer. Each artist must look closely at the life around him, he wrote, and have the courage and freedom to interpret it from his own perspective: “Nature viewed by all artists according to their individuality remains fundamental – the alpha and omega.” Such an attitude allied him with the avant-garde and set him in opposition to the official, academic art community. Liebermann took advantage of his position in the Berlin Secession to promote his theories in speeches, in written introductions to Secession catalogues, in essays in art journals, and in books published by Bruno Cassirer’ (ibid., pp. 43-44).