Watercolor. Lower right signed. On Japan paper. 27 x 23 cm. , the full sheet.
[EH].
- With the immediacy of expression, Nolde captured his subject in an inimitable intensity. - In his portraits, which make for a large part of his oeuvre, Emil Nolde studied the nature of people, at the same time he lends them a mysterious aloofness. - Family-owned for almost 70 years.
LITERATURE: Stuttgarter Kunstkabinett, auction 25 Modern Art, November 27/28, 1956, lot 708 (here: Frauenkopf im Profil, with a label on the reverse).

Private collection Karlsruhe (until 1956: Stuttgarter Kunstkabinett). Private collection Baden-Württemberg (acquired from the above in 1956). Family-owned ever since

Emil Nolde's portraits convey much of the painter's attitude to life. Almost shy of people, as he lived with his wife Ada in Seebüll, he nevertheless occasionally painted portraits, mostly of young women, who fill the entire picture with a mysterious aura against an imaginary background. As anonymous as the sitters remained, as mystically transfigured as Nolde sees them, they are simultaneously aloof and present. The twilight darkness many of his sitters are surrounded by makes them mysterious and remote. And yet there is the sensual moment of a dominant colorfulness, which Emil Nolde also applies in his portraits as a defining means of expression. It dominates a composition that is not without forcefulness. In this work, too, Nolde demonstrates his mastery of the watercolor, which finds its fulfillment in the unexpected density of the color values. [EH]

In good condition consistent of the agge, the thin paper slightly creased. Along the upper edge of the sheet with residue from the former mounting on the reverse, slightly pushing through to the recto. With a small paper loss below the girl's chin, expertly backed with Japan paperv and adjusted in color [EH].