Lot 52
  • 52

Edvard Munch

Estimate
2,000,000 - 3,000,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Edvard Munch
  • Sjalusi i badet (Jealousy in the Bath)
  • Oil on cardboard
  • 19 5/8 by 25 3/4 in.
  • 50 by 65.5 cm

Provenance

Olefine Johansen, Åsgårdstrand

Odd Jacobsen, Åsgårdstrand (acquired from the above)

Kate E. Jacobsen

Glench Collection, London

Galerie Beyeler, Basel

Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York

Art Salon Takahata, Osaka

Sale: Sotheby's, New York, May 20, 1982, lot 232

Private Collection (acquired at the above sale)

Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2008

Exhibited

Copenhagen, Ordrupgaard & Oslo, Munchmuseet, Edvard Munch and Denmark, 2010, no. 32, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Kunsthalle Bremen, Edvard Munch, Rätsel hinter der Leinwand, 2011-2012, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Literature

Gerd Woll, Edvard Munch, Catalogue raisonné, vol. II 1898-1908, Oslo, 2008, vol. II, no. 434, illustrated in color p. 477

Catalogue Note

“In my art I have tried to explain life and its meaning to myself, I also intended to help others to understand life better” (Edvard Munch)

In the early 1890s, Munch began work on a cycle of paintings that he would later group together under the title Frieze of Life. Exploring the enduring themes of the human condition – life and death, love and betrayal, jealousy and despair – these works came to be considered among the most important in his oeuvre. Jealousy was one of the central motifs of this period and continued to occupy Munch throughout his life; Sjalusi I Badet (Jealousy in the Bath) relates to the artist’s exploration of the theme in works from this series, developing a striking, new perspective on the subject.

One of the earliest appearances of the subject was in an 1893 canvas titled Jealousy (one of a number of variations on this theme, later known as Melancholy) that was among the six paintings first exhibited under the title Die Liebe (Love) in 1893. Ragna Stang described this work: “The theme of the fifth picture, at that time called Jealousy, is also loneliness: it is the feeling of being an outcast, of being completely alone in the world, that inspired the original title of the work” (R. Stang, Edvard Munch. The Man and the Artist, London, 1979, p. 104). Discussing this group of works, which included a version of The Scream, she goes on to add: “Munch has expressed the dominant theme in such a way as to allow universal identification… The pictures either make us aware of our problems or confirm their existence. We are compelled to acknowledge their intrinsic truth because, to quote Munch’s own words, they help one ‘to gain a true understanding of life’” (ibid., p. 104).

Although in subsequent explorations of this theme Munch experimented with a variety of compositions, he always retained the essential dynamic of two lovers and a third, isolated figure. In the Jealousy of 1895 – which closely relates to the present work – the composition is dominated by the figure of a man in the foreground, whilst in the background a pair of lovers stand beneath the tree of knowledge. The woman’s flowing locks and the brazen arrangement of her red cloak cast her as the temptress in the scene. In Sjalusi I Badet (Jealousy in the Bath) a similar scenario can be observed; the male lover remains faceless and turned away from the viewer, whilst the woman, in facing out towards us, seems the active participant in the scene. Whereas the background of the 1895 canvas is one of Edenic fecundity, with an obvious allusion to biblical temptation, the lovers of the present work inhabit a strikingly modern setting. The stark economy of the scene emphasizes the latent tensions in the work and focuses our attention more acutely on the figures at the center of the composition.

These works rely on the universality of human experience, but their power comes from Munch’s use of personal experience. In the 1895 version the face of the man, which bears more than a passing resemblance to the equivalent figure in the present work, has been identified as the Polish writer Stanislaw Przybyszewski. The couple in the background are presumed to be his wife Dagny Juel and one of her many lovers (she had relationships with Munch and the celebrated Swedish writer August Strindberg among others). Przybyszewski and Juel’s was a complex and troubled relationship which culminated in her death at the hands of a lover in 1901.

The unreasonable passion, and corresponding desolation, of such love triangles is keenly felt in the present work. Munch often employed the technique of arranging key figures to look directly out at the viewer, emphasizing the immediacy of their experience; this is particularly effective here, where the mask-like male face on the right is joined by a shadowy figure standing at the left edge of the composition accentuating the unsettling, voyeuristic feeling of the composition. This remarkable facility of expression was at the heart of Munch’s work. As Przybyszewski wrote in 1894: “Munch is the first to undertake the representation of the soul’s finest and most intense processes, precisely as they appear spontaneously, totally independent of every mental activity, in the pure consciousness of individuality. His paintings are virtually chemical preparations of the soul created during the moment when all reason has become silent” (S. Przybyszewski, quoted in Edvard Munch. The Modern Life of the Soul (exhibition catalogue), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2006, p. 35).