510 - Max Liebermann (1847 – Berlin – 1935)

Max Liebermann (1847 – Berlin – 1935) Tiergarten with Walkers, a Carriage, and a Streetcar Oil on canvas. (ca. 1925–1932). Approx. 40 x 50 cm. Signed lower left. On the reverse of the stretcher, stamped by the art supply store Leopold Hess, Berlin. Not listed in Eberle. The painting was authenticated in 2003 by Drs. Margreet Nouwen, Berlin, and designated for inclusion in the supplement to the catalog raisonné. • Max Liebermann once again demonstrates his mastery of painting • The lively Tiergarten paintings are among the most popular motifs of his late artistic career, particularly the multi-figure depictions featuring a horse-drawn carriage and a streetcar • With great ease, he captures the late-summer light and atmosphere beneath the canopy of leaves along the Tiergartenallee While Max Liebermann spent the summer months for years on end on the North Sea coast in Holland until the outbreak of World War I, from 1914 onward he was confined—initially for political reasons, later due to his age—to his residences in Berlin and Wannsee. He now found numerous sources of inspiration for his paintings in Berlin’s vast Tiergarten—just a few steps from his magnificent city palace on Pariser Platz—as well as in the surrounding Brandenburg countryside and in the garden of his summer home on the Wannsee. Depictions of the Große Seestraße in Wannsee and the avenue in the Tiergarten appear countless times in his extensive body of work. Liebermann possessed an inexhaustible repertoire of background figures, which he varied freely and anew time and again, so that no two works are alike: From elegantly dressed Sunday strollers in the summer, children at play, horseback riders, and ice skaters on the lake in the winter, to various vehicles—whether carriages or modern automobiles—and the bright yellow streetcar cars that underscore the urban proximity. At the Wannsee, it is the city dwellers on weekend outings who come from nearby Berlin and bring life to the otherwise quiet street. The tree-lined avenue, as a reflection of nature shaped by human hands, consistently serves as the unifying element that lends a sense of depth to the diagonal composition. It serves as a stage for the elements added by Liebermann—such as strollers, children, horsemen, a carriage, and the like—which he has dramatically staged. The true protagonist in all these works, however, is the interplay of light and shadow reflected in the canopy of the avenue. In the lively interplay of light and dark—the sharply piercing rays of sunlight reflected by the bright clothing of the women and children— and the flash of light blue sky between the treetops—captured with only sketchy brushstrokes—Liebermann once again demonstrates his mastery of painting. Having already utilized the play of light reflections in the foliage of trees for his paintings created in Holland as early as the 1880s, he now also makes it a perfected stylistic device in his urban park landscapes. A comparable “Tiergartenallee” was sold at KARL&FABER in December 2023 for €609,600. Provenance: Collection of Medical Officer Dr. Wilhelm Rösgen (1891–1956), Montabaur; acquired directly from the artist in 1932; in the family’s possession ever since; private collection, Rhineland. Taxation: subject to differential taxation (VAT: Margin Scheme).