Portrait study 1911

Female bust portrait with slightly tilted head and intense gaze. Hair pinned up, one braid falling forward. Wide-cut dress, trimmed at the edge with antique style metal plates. Background heightened with charcoal and opaque white.

JQAW# P_1911_040
Charcoal and pastel on cardboard 100 x 73 cm.
Signature: John Quincy Ɑdams.
Inscribed on the reverse: John Quincy Adams. "Pastel study" trust price. Kr. 1000.
Private collection Austria.

Described by Dorotheum Vienna as a "portrait of a show actress as Medea" in the auction catalogue, this pastel was probably made around 1910/1911 (exhibition label on reverse KH EL 1911 #432). Exhibited by Adams in 1911 merely as a "study" without a prominent name, it may be an early preparatory study for the later (1917) painting of the actress Else Wohlgemuth, or may have been created even earlier, perhaps as a study for the portrait Lily Berger (1907).

Cross-references

Exhibited

1911 Künstlerhaus Vienna (KH EL Vol. 56 1911/12 #432).

Literature

APH, catalog raisonné JQA 1995, p. 241, cat.#208, fig.#141.

Provenance

Unknown.
Auction Kende Vienna 1.3. 1933 Lot#3.
Unknown.
Auction Dorotheum Vienna 2.10.2018 Lot#232.
Private collection Austria.