879 - F. Matthei, Portrait of a Boy, child's portrait in pastel, probably a Kassel painter, 1941

F. Matthei, Portrait of a Boy, child's portrait in pastel, probably a Kassel painter, 1941 Pastel/cardboard, signed and dated 1941 lower right. Bust portrait of a boy with fair, straight-cut hair against a grey-green ground, the upper body turned slightly to the left, the gaze directed at the viewer. He wears a dark blue jacket with a white shirt collar, patterned shoulder facings and a white pocket square; the right hand grasps the lapel. The flesh tones softly modelled, the ground broadly wiped. On the reverse of the support the label of a Kassel framing shop. Age-appropriate good condition, partially rubbed. Image 53 x 44 cm (HxW), behind glass, framed, frame bumped, frame width 5 cm. The signature probably refers to the Kassel painter F. Matthei (1891 Kassel – 1969 ibid.), a son of the portrait and landscape painter Theodor Matthei (1857 Marburg – 1920 Kassel), who belonged to the Willingshausen painters' colony and served as curator of the Kassel art society. After initial training with his father he studied from 1908 at the Kassel Academy under Louis Kolitz, Hermann Knackfuss and Hans Olde, continuing after war service from 1919 to 1921 under Carl Bantzer. The child's portrait in pastel was a sought-after commission within bourgeois portraiture in the 1930s and 1940s.