id: 157225 accession number: 1994.103 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1994.103 updated: 2023-04-26 11:23:56.669000 Bust of a Woman, Seen from Behind, 1893. Adolph von Menzel (German, 1815–1905). Graphite (carpenter's pencil), with stumping; sheet: 41.4 x 28.9 cm (16 5/16 x 11 3/8 in.); secondary support: 53.3 x 39.2 cm (21 x 15 7/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1994.103 title: Bust of a Woman, Seen from Behind title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1893 creation date earliest: 1893 creation date latest: 1893 current location: creditline: Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund copyright: --- culture: Germany, 19th century technique: graphite (carpenter's pencil), with stumping department: Drawings collection: DR - German type: Drawing find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Adolph von Menzel (German, 1815–1905) - artist --- measurements: Sheet: 41.4 x 28.9 cm (16 5/16 x 11 3/8 in.); Secondary Support: 53.3 x 39.2 cm (21 x 15 7/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: description: cream(2) wove paper perimeter mounted to a false margin of cream(2) wove paper watermarks: inscriptions: inscription: signed, center left, in graphite: a.m. [underlined] / 93. translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2000-08-27T00:00:00 Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * European Master Drawings. Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, New York, NY (May, 1994); Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, Paris (June, 1994); Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, London (July, 1994). --- PROVENANCE with Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, New York date: 1994 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1994- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Adolph Menzel drew continuously and had a special coat made with deep pockets to hold his sketchpad, pencils, shading stumps, and gum eraser. digital description: Adolph Menzel left more than 5,000 drawings created during a long and successful career that spanned the 19th century. Near the end of his life, when this drawing was made, he used a carpenter's pencil--a broad, flat-pointed lead pencil made of soft graphite--and stumping (rubbing with bits of tightly rolled paper or leather) to created numerous studies of heads of models that he considered independent works of art. In this drawing of a woman seen from behind from the shoulders up, the virtuosity of Menzel's stumping creates the effect of tangible surfaces and light falling on them, especially on the woman's face and hat. While he used the width of the pencil vigorously to indicate grainy black shadows in the folds of the coat and seat back, he used the sharp point for fine lines describing hair and facial features. The immediacy of the image--drawn in close proximity and capturing her mouth slightly open--suggests Menzel's focus on a fleeting moment. He wrote of drawings such as this as "true to nature" yet without "being copied from nature with fearful exactitude." wall description: In the last two decades of his life, Menzel executed numerous studies of heads of models. Here tonal gradations, from velvety blacks to the palest gray, create a rich effect. The immediacy of the image-the illuminated profile with a mouth slightly open-suggests how the artist captured a fleeting moment. Such drawings are, as the artist wrote, "true to nature" without "being copied from nature with fearful exactitude." --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, Kunsthandel Bellinger, and Galerie de Bayser. European Master Drawings. New York: Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, 1994. page number: Reproduced: cat. no. 39 url: Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000. page number: Mentioned: cat. no. 66, p. 11, pp.162-163; p.293; Reproduced; p. 63 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1994.103/1994.103_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1994.103/1994.103_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1994.103/1994.103_full.tif