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Ernst Barlach (1870 -1938)

Code: 10313

Dimensions:

Tilla Durieux III

Bronze with dark brown patina.

Signed E. Barlach ( on back of neck)   H Noack Berlin to side.

Un numbered edition of under 20.

Elisabeth Laur: Catalogue raisonné no 170

Edition; Total unknown, nine unnumbered copies traced so far.

Cast years 1) 1930 two examples

2) unknown year seven known examples

In 1930 Gallery Flechtheim announced an edition of twenty examples which was not completed. The lower edge of the neck has been executed in two variations, it either goes straight down, or is gently flared outwards as in the plaster model, the latter example can be found at the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, this also varies in height.

Examples are marked E.B or E.Barlach on the back of the neck

The foundry mark of H Noack Berlin is found at the side or below signature.

Tilla Durieux (1880-1971) was a famous Austrian born actress. In 1910 she married her second husband the successful art dealer Paul Cassierer. She was the star of the Berlin theatre and associated with the writers artists and celebrities of the day.

Her portrait was painted by Oskar Kokoschka in 1910 and Renoir in 1914. 

Cassierer had been Barlach's dealer and art publisher since 1906 and paid him a retainer until his death in 1926. The idea of the portrait came to Barlach at the end of 1910 after a summer vacation in Nordwijk. He started modeling the first portrait of Tilla in the Cassirier apartment in Berlin.

Four principal versions exist of Tilla's portrait with minor variations. Tilla Duriex III dates from a plaster completed in 1912. According to Elizabeth Laur there were no casts made in bronze until 1930.

Cassierer and Tilla were divorced in 1926, Cassierer shot himself in the adjacent courtroom on the day the divorce was granted.