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Maurycy Gottlieb (Polish, 1856-1879) Saladin and Sittah playing chess image 1
Maurycy Gottlieb (Polish, 1856-1879) Saladin and Sittah playing chess image 2
Maurycy Gottlieb (Polish, 1856-1879) Saladin and Sittah playing chess image 3
Lot 49

Maurycy Gottlieb
(Polish, 1856-1879)
Saladin and Sittah playing chess

25 September 2024, 14:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £12,800 inc. premium

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Maurycy Gottlieb (Polish, 1856-1879)

Saladin and Sittah playing chess
indistinctly signed 'M.Got...' (lower left)
oil on canvas
31.5 x 23.5cm (12 3/8 x 9 1/4in).

Footnotes

Provenance
Dr. Rudolf Beres, Cracow.
Joseph Stieglitz, Tel Aviv.
Shoshana Levinson, Tel Aviv.
Private collection, New York.
Private collection, UK.

Exhibited
Cracow, National Museum, Memorial Exhibition, 1932, no. 62.
Tel Aviv, Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, In the Flower of Youth, Maurycy Gottlieb 1856-1879, 16 May - 20 July 1991, and Warsaw, National Musuem of Warsaw, 19 August - 20 October, 1991, no. 26.

Literature
Weisenberg, 1888, p. 31
Waldman, 1932, p. 52.
Sandel, 1953, p. 130.
Soltysowa, 1877, p. 178.
Nehama Guralnik, Eugen Kolb, Jerzy Malinowski, In the Flower of Youth, Maurycy Gottlieb 1856-1879, exh. cat., Tel Aviv, 1991, p. 143, illustrated.

The present lot depicts a scene from Nathan the Wise, an 18th Century play by Gotthold Lessing, which tells the story of a wealthy Jew in 12th Century Jerusalem. The sultan Saladin plays chess with his sister Sittah, while discussing her future. The play, which advocates religious tolerance, offered a rich source of subjects for Gottlieb, when he was living in Vienna, and working under the tutelage of Heinrich von Angeli.

Additional information

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