7 - Hermann Max Pechstein

Hermann Max Pechstein Die Betrachtung 1908 Oil on canvas. 57 x 120.2 cm. Framed. Signed, dated, and with location 'Paris 08 / M. Pechstein' in dark red upper right. Verso titled and inscribed with the artist's name "Die 'Betrachtung' von H. M. Pechstein", presumably by another hand. - In fine condition with fresh colours. Not recorded by Soika Accompanied by a comprehensive art-historical report by Aya Soika dated 12 March 2026. The painting is to be included in the archives of the Max Pechstein Foundation under reference number 1908/2a. Provenance Collection Egon Lichtenstein, Berlin (1950s); Private ownership, Lower Saxony Exhibitions Presumably Dresden 1908 (Kunstsalon Emil Richter), Künstlergruppe "Die Brücke" With the painting “Die Betrachtung”, one of the rare works created by Max Pechstein in Paris in 1908 is coming up for auction. Due to the thematic influence of the French symbolist Puvis de Chavannes and the painterly technique based on the work of Vincent van Gogh, this picture is of central significance for Pechstein’s development as an artist. In December 1907, following his extensive travels in Italy, Pechstein reached Paris, where he explored the art of the Early Renaissance in the Musée Cluny as well as contemporary French painting. The highlights of his four-month stay presumably included the exhibition featuring around 100 works by Vincent van Gogh at the gallery of Bernheim-Jeune. The wall paintings on the life of Saint Geneviève that Puvis de Chavannes had completed in the Panthéon around 1875 were equally influential, and Pechstein wrote about them to Alexander Gerbig on 19 December 1907: “A better impression was made on me by Puvis de Chavannes’s wall paintings in the Panthéon, which I enjoy. He had a palette like the one preferred by Giotto […]” (Pechstein-Archiv, Kunstsammlungen Zwickau, 2013/120/Au.). Pechstein created this landscape-format painting centred around Mary dressed in blue and Jesus under the impression of this symbolist history painting (see comp. ill.). The semicircle around them contains a large number of younger as well as older men and women viewing – or, actually, adoring – the Christ Child. Besides the Biblical theme and the drapery reminiscent of the Renaissance, the unusually muted palette is also to be traced back to Chavannes’s painting “The Childhood of Geneviève”. The short dashes of the brushwork, on the other hand, presumably come from van Gogh. There is scarcely another painting that better illustrates the diverse Parisian influences on Pechstein’s work than his “Betrachtung”.