Visit to Berlin: The Munich auction house Neumeister makes a guest appearance with its highlights

The chandelier dances. Lovis Corinth seems to have arranged it a little at an angle in his picture – similar to the two figures hanging in their chairs under the heavy chandelier. Alcohol is definitely involved, as shown by the carafe filled with red wine and all the shimmering glasses on the round table. And even if they already seem quite tipsy, the woman, Corinth’s wife Charlotte, and the painter friend Robert Richter continue to toast each other in the semi-darkness of the high-ceilinged room. The empty chair in the foreground looks as if it is just waiting for Corinth, who left the table briefly to capture the scene in warm brown tones.

The picture was taken in 1905 in Oskar Moll’s Berlin studio. Its history alone makes it a lot whose journey from Munich to the capital happens with good reason before it is auctioned off at the Neumeister auction house at the end of the month: as many interested parties as possible should have seen the painting “Under the Chandelier”. Museums are also welcome, because the estimated price of 220,000-280.00 euros is moderate. In 1991 it was already delivered to the Munich auction house, since then it has been in a southern German private collection.

Corinth skilfully captures the sparse light in the studio

Corinth had lived in Berlin since 1901, was newly married and successful. The picture reflects both his own self-indulgence and the artist’s roots in late Impressionism. In the rooms of the Bermel Gallery in Luxburg, where Neumeister’s Berlin representative is also located, the quick, confident gestures can be studied as well as the sophistication with which the painter allows the meager light to be reflected from the glasses and the wall mirror into the room . Despite all the gloom that characterizes the interior, a glow emanates from the vital moment.

The highlight of the upcoming auction will be flanked by a few other lots that are worth a visit (Fasanenstr. 29, until March 19, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.). Above all, the watercolor “Mountain Anemones” by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner from the 1920s: an unusually simple, abstract motif, about which he himself wrote that it had been “cleansed of everything that was irrelevant.” recognizable in that motif, it has an estimated price of 10,000-15,000 euros. Much more is required for the two watercolors by Emil Nolde, a scene by the water and a flower picture. Two typical themes, loved by both the artist and the public, which he has repeatedly taken up. Neumeister expects at least 40,000 euros for “Cactuses and Tulips”, which was in a Berlin private collection, and “Evening Sea with Steamer” under low-hanging clouds has an estimate of 60,000 euros.

The latter is also the price you have to pay for a drawing by Gustav Klimt. The “Lying Lovers” from the same period as Corinth’s painting was created a few years before the Viennese painter’s legendary “Kiss”. Lot 1506, Neumeister speculates, may even be a preliminary drawing.

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