Adolph Menzel

Eltschig collection, Berlin, thence by descent until 1908

Dr Erich Moewes (from 1908/9 until 1948)

E. Weber (purchased at auction in Frankfurt in 1960)

Acquired by the present owner in 1962

Berlin, Akademieausstellung, 1836, no. 600

Berlin, Galerie Sachse (Menzel’s dealer), 1837

Bamberg, Bamberger Staatsbibliothek, Menzel, 1968

Berlin, Alte Nationalgalerie, Adolph Menzel. Between Romanticism and Impressionism, 1997, no. 1

Franz Kugler, ‘Neuere Gemälde, Berlin’, Museum, Blätter für bildende Kunst, year 5, Berlin, 4 September 1837, p. 282

Hugo von Tschudi, Adolph von Menzel. Abbildungen seiner Gemälde und Studien, Munich, 1905, p. IX

Hans Wolff, ed., Adolph von Menzels Briefe, Berlin, 1914, p. 10ff.

Frankfurter Rundschau, 23 January 1960, p. 6, illustrated

Die Weltkunst, XXXII, 1962, no. 4, p. 16, illustrated

Jens Christian Jensen, Adolf Menzel, Cologne, 1982, p. 20, fig. 11, illustrated

Christiane Zangs, Die künstlerische Entwicklung und das Werk Menzels im Spiegel der zeitgenössischen Kritik (thesis memoir, Aachen, 1987), Aachen/Mainz, 1992, p. 43ff

The Game of Chess was Menzel’s first painting in oil, made when he was twenty years old, and was sold shortly after completion. 

This lot is sold with:

(i) A letter, dated 1836 and unrelated to the painting, from Menzel to a patron discussing a portrait sketch he was working on;

(ii) A signed photograph portraying Menzel at an advanced age (probably around 1890), by the Berlin court photographer Johann Gustav Adolf Halwas (1835-1919)