(Dusseldorf 1866–1939 Munich)
The Love Declaration, c. 1900, signed C. Strathmann, stamp
R. Wurm, München on the reverse, oil on canvas, 122 x 153 cm, framed

Provenance:
Lempertz, Cologne, 14 May 1994, lot 711
Private Collection, Spain

Note:
From 15 March – 28 July 2019, the exhibition Jugendstil skurril. Die fabelhafte Kunst des Carl Strathmann, in the Münchner Stadtmuseum, will show for the first time Strathmann‘s artistic estate, which has been preserved there since the early 1960s.

The plot, a tête-à-tête between two fairy-tale figures in the reeds, almost fades into the background in the face of the artist’s painstaking attention to detail, as is so often the case in works by Carl Strathmann. The creative, small-scale design of magnificent ornaments is one of Strathmann’s trademarks. He liked to blur the boundaries between high art and the applied arts. He often leads the viewer into fairy-tale worlds he has created himself or into monumental still lifes with flowers inspired by his imagination. Fellow artists, such as Lovis Corinth and Wassily Kandinsky, valued his art highly.
The date proposed for the Liebeserklärung
(The Love Declaration) suggests a biographical event: his marriage to Elisabeth (“Elly”)
Franke on 12 June 1899 in Leipzig.
Dr. Nico Kirchberger, Head of the Graphics and Paintings Collection, Münchner Stadtmuseum