Plant studies with daffodils, anemones and a vase with daisies

Paula Modersohn-Becker

1876 Dresden – 1907 Worpswede

Pen and black ink. Size of sheet: 41 x 26 cm. Recto: A blue vase filled with flowers and a study of a landscape with a seated figure beside a bank of trees. Watercolour and pencil. Signed with the initials by the artist’s husband, Otto Modersohn. Uwe W. Schneede, Paula Modersohn-Becker. Zeichnungen, Pastelle, Bildentwürfe, exh. cat. Hamburger Kunstverein 1976; Frankfurter Kunstverein; Kunsthaus Zürich, cat. no. 104 (illustrated).

The drawing dates from the artist’s period in Worpswede in 1898-9 and has the characteristic intensity of her early work before she went to Paris in 1900. A pencil drawing from the same date of a blossoming lily was sold in 1999 (C.G.Boerner, Deutsche Zeichnungen 1600-1900, Düsseldorf 1999, cat. no 31) and is now in a Swiss private collection. See also Studie eines Kahlen Zweiges, 1897 as well as the sketchbook (dated August 1897 - June 1898) from which our drawing might have been taken (Anne Röver, Paula Modersohn Becker. Das Frühwerk, Kunsthalle Bremen 1985, cat. no. 144 and 148).

The sheet is also reminiscent of the plant and leaf studies of the Nazarene artists.

Bought within the art trade.