The billiard player pre-1910

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A young blond billiard player with a meager moustache leans against a pool table, his cue shouldered, his left hand, in which he holds a cigarette, hooked in his pants with his thumb. He wears gray trousers, a black vest with a black skirt and tie. The background is represented by a rich rococo interior with white and gold wall paneling, heavy curtains as well as a clothes rack, probably depicting a Ringstrasse coffeehouse rather than a private salon.

JQAW# P_1910_060
Oil on wood 45 x 31 cm
Signatur according to auction house: John Q. Ɑdams
Unknown private collection Ukraine
Picture (cut?): auction catalogue via artnet datbase

This rather more genre painting than portrait of a young billiard player is an early work of the artist, here dated as before 1910, but probably more likely to date around/before 1905. The hypothesis (formulated by a market participant) that the sitter is the young Louis Nathaniel Rothschild (1882-1955) does not correspond to the facts, as Louis Rothschild had dark hair in his younger age.

The painting has had an eventful odyssey through numerous auctions in the USA and Europe. It has been at home in Ukraine since 2007 and it is hoped that it has finally found a long-term, loving home.

Cross-references

Exhibited

Literature

Provenance

Unknown.
1992 Sothebys London auction 28.10.1992 Lot 53.
2004 Christies New York auction 29.11.2004 Lot 97 (unsold).
2005 Christies New York auction 9.8.2005 Lot 52.
2006 Dorotheum Vienna auction 16.2.2006 Lot 154 (unsold)
Art trade Boris Wilnitsky Fine Arts Vienna.
2007 Export (BDA filing) to Bardolovo in the Ukraine.
Unknown private collection Ukraine.