Gustav Aldof Mossa

Anonymous sale, M^e Champin-Lombrail- Gautier, Enghien-les-bains, 18 novembre 1981;

Where acquired by Mlle J.;

By inheritance to the present owner.

In 1913, the Galerie Georges Petit organised ‘an exhibition of Ymages [sic] by Gustav Adolf Mossa inspired by the work of Robert Schumann’. This entrancing watercolour is one of the trial compositions for the illustration of Manfred.

Manfred is a dramatic poem by Byron, published in 1817, which in turn inspired Schumann to produce a dramatic poem in three parts, whose overture was performed for the first time in 1848, followed by the whole work in 1851. Only the overture has remained in the composer’s repertoire.

The catalogue of the 1913 Paris exhibition describes the work as follows (p. 14): ‘The wealthy noble Manfred lives alone in Switzerland, in his feudal castle. Attracted by the dark sciences and haunted by the memory of his dead sister Astarte, whom he had loved, he consults the spirits. Then, unable to find solace from his grief, he wanders in the mountains, roams to the edge of abysses and descends to the kingdom of the God of Evil. Finally he summons Astarte, begging her to unveil the mystery of future life, and dies, an unbeliever’. While remaining enigmatic, the character of Manfred enabled an exploration of the forbidden transgression of incest and the collapse of reason, as well as man’s despair and powerlessness in the face of his demons.

The final work was sold in Cannes in 2016 (Besch, 30 December 2016, lot 108) and is described by Jean-Roger Soubiran in his 2010 catalogue raisonné (Gustav Adolf Mossa, Catalogue raisonné des œuvres ‘symbolistes’, 2010, pp. 332–333, A258). This watercolour also represents the moment when Manfred and Astarte meet, although she only appears as a silhouette. The composition is less constricted than the final version and Manfred seems more astonished than tormented.