Bardzo bogaty opis i spory materiał porównawczy jak na nie sygnowany przez Gottlieba portret. Nie rozumiem, dlaczego w opisie katalogowym nie ma ani słowa proweniencji. Czyż doprawdę nie można dojść do informacji kto wcześniej posiadał tę pracę? Chyba nie została znaleziona na paryskim pchlim jarmarku? Dodam, że portret Jakimowicza, ten z Muzem Narodowego w Warszawie jest sygnowany (dla porównania pokazuję niżej fotografię) , tudzież portret Wacława Borowskiego, z tego samego muzeum, też jest sygnowany. Jest trochę irytujące, że ‘zapomniano’ napisać w katalogu o tych dwóch sprawach (braku sygnatury i braku proweniencji) za to jest certyfikat autentyczności. Presumed by Leopold Gottlieb portrait of presumed Mieczysław Jakimowicz? 50,000 – 60,000 euro dla jednych dużo dla innych niewiele. Portret, swoją drogą, niezły.
Lot 13. Léopold GOTTLIEB (Drohobycz 1883 – Paris 1934). Presumed portrait of the painter Mieczyslaw Jakimowicz, Circa 1908. Oil on canvas, 100 x 80 cm. A certificate of authenticity from the BMCB will be given to the purchaser. Leopold Gottlieb, author of figurative scenes, religious and biblical subjects, was above all the master of portraiture. He painted striking effigies of representatives of Polish and international Bohemia: the art critic André Salmon, the sculptors Rembrandt Bugatti and Xawery Dunikowski, the painters Jules Pascin, Diego de Rivera and Wacław Borowski, among others.
In 1907, in Krakow, Leopold Gottlieb painted a portrait of his brother-in-law and colleague, the painter Mieczysław Jakimowicz, with whom he had founded the Group of Five two years earlier. This portrait is entitled The Man Sitting on a Chair. Portrait of Mieczysław Jakimowicz, 1907, is now in the National Museum in Warsaw. Both Gottlieb and Jakimowicz met in 1908 in Paris, sharing the same address at 3 rue Boissonade in Montparnasse (which may even have been their studio). It was probably at this time that Jakimowicz served, for the second time, as a model for his brother-in-law. This portrait is part of a series that is distinguished in Gottlieb’s work by a very reduced, almost monochrome, colour range of ochres and earths, enhanced by black and white. Other examples of this series are: the Self-Portrait of 1908 (Tel Aviv Art Museum), two portraits of the artist’s mother, one dating from 1908, the other from 1910 (Israel Museum in Jerusalem), the Portrait of a Man, circa 1905-1910 (in 2000, in the Wojciech Fibak collection), and finally the Portrait of Wacław Borowski, circa 1910 (National Museum in Warsaw). Although painted, these paintings seem to be halfway between painting and drawing, in which Gottlieb also excelled, so decided and vigorous is the line. The hieratic and dignified pose of the model, whose gaze is directed downwards as if dominating the viewer while distancing himself from the outside world, brings him closer to Gottlieb’s Self-Portrait of 1908, already mentioned. The emphasis on the hands of the person being portrayed, as well as his posture leaning on the back of a seat – as in the above-mentioned Man Sitting on a Chair in the Warsaw Museum – again suggests that the model is Mieczysław Jakimowicz. Dr. Ewa Bobrowska BECM SAS (Bobrowska-Mielniczuk Expert Office). Estimate 50,000 – 60,000 euro. Millon. 05/13/20
