Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

Maurycy Gottlieb (Polish, 1856-1879) Portrait of Laura, the artist's fiancée, 1877 image 1
Maurycy Gottlieb (Polish, 1856-1879) Portrait of Laura, the artist's fiancée, 1877 image 2
Maurycy Gottlieb (Polish, 1856-1879) Portrait of Laura, the artist's fiancée, 1877 image 3
Lot 51

Maurycy Gottlieb
(Polish, 1856-1879)
Portrait of Laura, the artist's fiancée, 1877

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

Sold for £63,900 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our 19th Century & Orientalist Paintings specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

Maurycy Gottlieb (Polish, 1856-1879)

Portrait of Laura, the artist's fiancée, 1877
bears indistinct signature and date (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
58 x 46.3cm (22 13/16 x 18 1/4in).

Footnotes

Provenance
Emil Beres, Cracow.
Dr. Rudolf Beres, Cracow.
Emil Beres, Cracow.
J. Beres, Montreal, Canada.
Private collection, New York.
Private collection, UK.

Exhibited
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. 17.

Literature
Kolb, 1958, p. 9, illustrated.
Soltysowa, 1977, pp. 161, 164, 178, pl. 22, illustrated.
Nehama Guralnik, Eugen Kolb, Jerzy Malinowski, In the Flower of Youth, Maurycy Gottlieb 1856-1879, exh. cat., Tel Aviv, 1991, p. 131, illustrated, p. 76, illustrated (detail).

Born in 1856, Moritz Gottlieb showed an early talent for paintng, and enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna aged just fifteen. Working between Vienna, Munich, Rome and Norway, Gottlieb produced an extraordinary body of work, much of which narrates the history of the Jewish people in Poland. His iconic work Jews praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur hangs in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and he was awarded a gold medal at the Munich exhibition of 1876 for Shylock and Jessica.

The present work depicts Laura Rosenfeld, whose likeness appears in a number of Gottlieb's paintings. The two most likely met in Vienna in the mid-1870s. Tragically, following Rosenfeld calling off the engagement and marrying a wealthy banker, Gottlieb intentionally exposed himself to the elements, contracting a cold, which led to his untimely death at just 23.

Additional information

Bid now on these items

Sidney Richard Percy(British, 1821-1886)The Barnmouth Water near Dolgelly, North Wales

Julius Olsson(British, 1864-1942)Summer Sea, Newquay

Edward Seago, RWS, RBA(British, 1910-1974)Old houses, Istanbul

Alois Arnegger(Austrian, 1879-1967)Sunset, Untersberg

Jean Joseph Benjamin Constant(French, 1845-1902)On the roofs

Louis Monro Grier(Australian, 1864-1920) St Ives, Cornwall

Edward Seago, RWS, RBA(British, 1910-1974)The lion of S. Mark - Venice

Sir Alfred James Munnings, PRA, RWS(British, 1878-1959)The leading horses of the Royal Carriage before the Ascot Procession, June 1925

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt., ARA, RWS(British, 1833-1898)Portrait of Elsie York

Franz von Defregger(Austrian, 1835-1921)Touristen auf der Alm

John McGhie(British, 1867-1952)Dutch Fisherwomen and Child

Louis-François Cassas(Azay-le-Ferron 1756-1827 Versailles)Studies of Egyptian figures

Ken Howard R.A.(British, 1932-2022)Debora