Liège, Elise de

Elise de Liège (? - ?)

This probably 1900-20 “Portrait-Visite” of a beautiful young women in a beautiful dress was picked up from the grass in an outdoors flea market. One of those hard back, business card format, quality glass plate portraits. It obviously had fallen out of an old family photo album with many photographs by Belgian photographers, as I learned from other examples, located in or around the city of Luik (Liège).

Someone bought the lot, mainly for the beautiful old album. The contents, the family portraits, all without names, were of less “importance”. Without a name and detached from their relatives they may be of artistic but not sentimental value.

So, very friendly, I was to keep it. To keep her. Her friendly face with that mysterious and faintly familiar smile. For ever mine.

She has the air and nobility of a Genovese princess portrayed by Leonardo da Vinci. A missing portrait between La Giaconda and La Ferronière.

Timeless and classic beauty between Lisa del Giacondo, Lucrezia Crivelli and Beatrice d’Este.

All I know is her name: Elise, and she came from Liège (les environs de) Belgium………

And then sorting pictures in a small sub-archive containing pictures of classic (crouching) “Caryatides”: female figures used as pillars or supporting structures, in a glimpse I thought I recognised and may have found her …..

A - Z

gerbrandcaspers@icloud.com

Dear print lover, passing-by visitor and reader:

While this new gallery-museum site is under construction (being build-up, stocked and arranged) priority must be given to first add all the represented artists in the index with works from the collection and if possible with the examples from the archives.

During construction the site is open to visitors, questions, feedback and suggestions.

Gerrie

gerbrandcaspers@icloud.com

Read more about the artists, their lives, families and careers in the new and extensive Artist Lexicon: “DAS HAUS DER FRAU, the short biographies” accompanying this exhibition.

Hundreds of new artist biographies, a private publication in 2 Volumes written conveniently in English.

Visit the Shop for more info.

Julius Edmund Robert Nitsche

(Breslau 16-02-1882 - 1965 Munich)

Painter, illustrator, arts & crafts artist, interior- book cover and typographic designer, architect (interior design), graphic artist and printmaker. Worked for the illustrious “Jugend” Magazine. Married to Eva N.N.
Known to have worked in Breslau, Munich and Leipzig. Created several type-face (“Zierbuchstaben“) like “Unger Fraktur Initalen” for J. Klinkhardt 1910. Created a colour woodblock book plate (ex libris) for painter and paint manufacturer Fritz Behrendt* (1863-1946).

Known from a poster (“Plakat” 68 x 85 cm) for a 1911 Munich “Grosse Algemeine Hundeausstellung” with a barsoi (Russian greyhound). Also known from a bookplate for “Eva und Julius Nitsche”, also with a barsoi.
Works represented in Offenbach Klingspor Museum (spec. in book design and typography).

Dresslers KHB 1930: Munich, Türkenstrasse 97. Member BDG. (board member), RvbK.,DWB., DGfchrK.,KB., “die Unabhängigen”.

Possibly related to: Nitsche, Hinrich (Breslau 14-02-1845 - 08-11-1902 Tharandt), zoologist in Breslau and son-in-law to geographer Oscar Ferdinand Peschel (Dresden 1826 - 1875 Leipzig).

* Behrendt, Friedrich (Fritz)     (Memel 31-10-1863 - 13-02-1946 Fuerstenfeldbruck)

Painter and paint manufacturer. (Also Behrendt). Studied in Königsberg academy and in Karlsruhe academy under landscape painter and illustrator Hermann Baisch (1846-1894). Member of the Munich Secession 1903.
Friend of fauvist painter Oskar Moll* and said to have together developed “lichtbeständige” Behrendt-Farbe: a brand of light stable colour pigments (artist oil/based paint) known as “Berendt’schen Farben”. For the manufacturing of their products he owned a “Bitumen-Fabrik” in Grafrath near Fuertstenfeldbruck referring to the oil based paints he created.
Married to textile artist Olga Schierlitz (Hamburg 1867-1958) the daughter of a Hamburg merchant.

They had two daughters Hedda and Irmgard Mastaglio-Behrendt (Munich 23-01-1905 - 1990) studied in Munich under Angelo Jank (1868-1940), Karl Caspar (Friedrichshafen 1879 - 1956) and in the Munich painting school of Moritz Heymann (1870-1937). Fleeing from Silesia to Schleswig-Holstein at the ending of WW-II she lost all her work.

* Moll, Oskar    (Brzeg/Brieg, Prussia, now Poland 21-07-1875 - 19-08-1947 Berlin)

Fauvist painter who studied under Corinth, Leistikow. In Paris became acquainted in the Café de Dome circles meeting Matisse and Picasso. He started, with his wife Margarethe and their friend painter Hans Purrmann (1880-1966) the short lived “Académie Matisse”. Purrmann travelled to Paris in 1906 becoming a student and personal friend of Henri Matisse ((1869-1954). Appointed as professor in Breslau Academy succeeding August Endell (1871-1925). His work was declared “entarted”, displayed and confiscated by the Nazis after which they led a secluded life in Berlin. Their art collection consisting of numerous paintings, also by Matisse, Léger, Bracque and Picasso was destroyed in a 1943 allied bombing raid on Berlin. Their home destroyed they tried to find refuge in his home town but were forced to return to Berlin by the advancing Red-Army.
He was married to painter author and sculptor Marg Moll, born as Margarethe Haeffner (Mühlhausen 1884 - 1979 Munich).

Isidorus (Is.) Maria Cornelis van Mens

(Berlicum 25-08-1890 – 05-07-1985 Oosterhout)

Dutch painter, book cover designer drawer graphic artist and printmaker. Son of Berlicum notary Eugenius Ferdinandus Desiderius van Mens (1843-1931) and Ida Maria Johanna Cornelia Murraij (1867 - after 1962).

Studied in Antwerp and Brussels art academies. Lived and worked Amsterdam, Zandvoort, Utrecht, Brussels and after 1921 in Casteau near Mons (Bergen in Belgium). Travelled extensively to North Africa, France, Spain, Bai and China. As an artist best known for his oriental paintings and etchings.

Worked also for publisher Valkhoff & Co in Amersfoort, designing book covers for the immensely popular Cissy van Marxveldt youth books series