Isidor Kaufmann

Sale: Sotheby's, New York, June 23, 1983, lot 436, illustrated
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Please note the additional literature:
Jay Weinstein, A Collector's Guide to Judaica, New York, 1985, illustrated opposite p. 108

 

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. This painting is in beautiful state. On a mahogany panel with one reinforcement running vertically on the right side. The panel is flat, the paint layer is stable and most likely clean with no retouches or damages visible to the naked eye. Under ultraviolet light there is possible a couple of spots in the lower left corner and above the table in the center left side.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Similar to the Munich School's Franz von Defregger's Tyrolean peasants, Eduard Grützner's drink-loving monks, and Carl Spitzweg's whimsical peasants, Kaufmann's oeuvre contains a number of stock character types, the chess player among them (G. Tobias Natter, "Scribblings and Sugar Water"? Glorification and Positions in the Work of Isidor Kaufmann" in Isidor Kaufmann, 1853-1921, exh. cat., Vienna, 1995, p. 18-19).  In the present work, the artist depicts his subject in a moment of quiet concentration which would have been instantly recognizable to his Viennese patrons: seated at a simple games table, his board set before him, the player ponders his next move. Kaufmann enlivens the scene by catching the sitter, brow furrowed, avoiding the viewer's gaze, clearly puzzled over the best strategy. So absorbed is he that he neglects his cigarette burning on the edge of the dusty, warped and cracked tabletop. Unlike the warm room of The Bachelor's Birthday (see lot 61), the chess player sits on an un-upholstered chair in an unadorned room of bare grey walls, his red nose, heavy coat, and top hat suggesting the coldness of the space--or that he has rushed home to immediately sit down and plot his next move. In this small composition, intellectual pursuits are promoted over fine furnishings: books are splayed open on a table, their checkerboard illustrations suggesting they may be volumes of chess strategy.  As with the all of Kaufmann's best genre scenes of the late nineteenth century, The Chess Player is informed by popular contemporary culture.  In Vienna after 1865, when the "Wiener Schachgesellschaft" (Viennese chess society, founded in 1857) played a set of matches against some prominent clubs of Insterburg, Berlin and London, chess champions became local heroes, and the game became a frequently enjoyed pastime. By the end of the nineteenth century, communication games were particularly popular. Correspondence chess, played by various forms of long-distance correspondence (usually the mail) could last days, weeks, months, or even years as competitors attempted to devise the best moves to checkmate an opponent.  Indeed, Kaufmann's player may very well be in the midst of a heated match, only a few pieces left on the board, suggesting all is focused on the finish and little else.