Page 95 - Gallery 19C Nazarenes Catalogues

2 13 PROVENANCE EXHIBITED LITERATURE
Johann Richard Seel J. Bloem, Düsseldorf, until 1908 Elberfeld, Städtisches Museum, Ammann 1907, 116/117.
GER M AN, 1817–1875 Sale, Grisebach Auktionen, Berlin, Elberfelder Familienporträts, Schäfer 1907, 120.
28 November 2012, lot 123
March–April 1907, no. 98
Knieriem 1994, 133.
BETTY JOSEFINE JACOBINE BLOEM (1824–1903) Private Collection, California Heidermann 2003, 34–36
AND FRIDERIKE LUISA BLOEM (b. 1823) (acquired at the above sale) (fig. 34 on 35); 130; and 215,
signed J.R. Seel and dated 1841 (lower left) cat. no. 35.
oil on canvas
42 ¹/₂ by 34 ¹/₄ in. (108 by 87 cm)

Johann Richard Seel (1817–1875), the artistically, musically, and poetically artist, who was merely 22, this was indeed, the first director of “B. Beluty” and proceeded to open a small business. Friderike, in turn, Cat. 13a Johann Richard Seel (artist) and Julius Springer
gifted son of a tin caster, received his first artistic education in Elberfeld Elberfeld’s municipal museum gushed, an astonishing achievement. 3 never married and instead took care of their mother, who was then living (publisher), The German Michel, 1842, lithography on paper,
before enrolling at the Düsseldorf Academy in 1837 where he studied in Düsseldorf at Schwanenmarkt 16. Probably in the same year he painted 40.5 × 50 cm, Heinrich-Heine-Institut, Düsseldorf.
under Carl Friedrich Sohn (1805–1867). Three years later, in late 1840 The Bloems played an important role in the Rhinelands as a progressive the double portrait (1841), Seel also portrayed the oldest sister,
or perhaps early 1841, Seel left for Berlin and began to focus on drawing voice among the region’s bourgeoisie. The sisters’ older brother, Anton Catharina Augustine “Käthe” (1816–1901). Much smaller and simpler Cat. 13b Carl Ferdinand Sohn, The Two Leonores, 1834, oil on
and, above all, caricature. It was in this arena that in 1842, he produced (1814–1884), became an influential lawyer that, as a staunch leader of the than her sisters’ counterfeit, the canvas stands out for a disarming canvas, 216 × 174 cm, Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn.
his most famous image, The Sleeping Michel, an allegorical commentary on Düsseldorf democrats and member of the Prussian National Assembly, frankness (Cat. 13c). Cat. 13c Johann Richard Seel, Catharina Augustine “Käthe” Bloem, circa
contemporary politics (Cat. 13a). In contrast to the figure of Germania, garnered a reputation as an extraordinary defense attorney, not least of 1841, oil on canvas, 70 × 54 cm, Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf.
the Michel does not stand for the nation but the people. As such he is the revolutionaries of 1848. Seel shared the family’s liberal ideals and The Bloems were a tight knit family, and this, together with the sheer
meant to embody the German national character. Seel’s widely circulating commitment to democratic politics, and for that reason bonded with the aesthetic brilliance of the double portrait might explain why the ¹ https://www.slub-dresden.de/besuchen/ausstellungen-corty-galerie/
caricature thematized the suffering inflicted upon German people by second oldest of the Bloem brothers, Julius (1822–1908), the later owner various portraits remained in the family for over half a century. In 1925, archiv-der-ausstellungen/ausstellungen-2020/schmaehung-provokation-
their neighboring states, which, as he saw it, acted unanimously hostile. of Betty and Friderike’s double portrait. Like his older brother a gifted Catharina’s likeness finally found a permanent home in Düsseldorf’s stigma-medien-und-formen-der-herabsetzung/stereotype-stigmata/der-
Yet Seel was not letting the German rulers off the hook either, and the attorney, Julius also kept close ties with the local art scene and in 1851 main painting gallery, but by then, the double portrait vanished. deutsche-michel-ein-invektives-autostereotyp
lock on Michel’s mouth denounces the widespread censorship in those 36 was elected an honorary member of Düsseldorf’s free artists’ association, It had been last seen in 1907, when Julius, then a member of the ² In 1902 the initiatives for a museum succeeded, and Dr. Friedrich Fries
principalities that made up a Germany in need, as the caricature suggests, Der Künstlerverein Malkasten. It was here that the brothers met Emanuel Committee of the Permanent Art exhibition in the Casino, had lent it to was appointed as the first director of the newly founded Städtische Museum
of unification. Michel’s role as a victim seems pitiful, but self-inflicted, Leutze (1816–1868), who, inspired by the 1848-Revolution and the Rhine Elberfeld’s municipal museum for an exhibition of local family portraits. Elberfeld; in 1961, it was renamed after its most important patron, the Von
and his dozing body calls out to the German population to “wake up.” 1 crossings of the local glee club, was working on his iconic Washington The canvas attracted considerable attention, and the local newspaper der Heydt family (nowadays located in Wuppertal).
Crossing the Delaware. On the side, Leutze also produced a striking likeness dedicated a full-page to its reproduction. When the first monograph ³ Fries 1926, cited after Heidermann 2003, 130.
If Seel’s reputation rests today on his caricatures, his own time regarded of Anton. However, it was the youngest of the Bloem brothers, Gustav of Seel appeared in 2003, its author, Horst Heidermann (1929–2018),
him highly as a portraitist. He had already excelled in this genre at the (1821–1905), who was most active as collector and amassed, while regretted deeply that his only knowledge of the portrait was from a black- ⁴ https://aaronnewcomer.com/braun-bloem-trailblazers-in-the-world-of-
Düsseldorf Academy, with the lush likeness of the sisters Betty and making a name for himself as a trailblazer in the world of ammunition and-white photograph. The painting’s reappearance on the art market ammunition-manufacturing/
Friderike Bloem as a prime example. The canvas occupies a unique place manufacturing, a remarkable collection of the Düsseldorf School in 2012—over 100 years after the canvas had been lost to obscurity—is ⁵ Leipziger Sonntagsblatt, no. 37, 14. Sept. 1862 and no. 41, 12 Oct. 1862
in Seel’s oeuvre, not least for its elaborate setting, which, half church, of Painting. 4 thus truly a stroke of luck. It not only closes a gaping hole in Richard
half greenhouse, bursts with gigantic flowers. Seel sets up a subtle The sisters were no less interesting. While living in Bad Kreuznach Seel’s oeuvre. It also delivers a powerful image of two women who, with
dualism between the two sitters, one being more active, self-assured, between 1841 and 1847, the youngest, Betty, struck up a friendship their family, were dedicated in forging a liberal-democratic future for a
the other more contemplative and bashful. The symbolism of the with Jenny von Westphalen (1814–1881), the future wife of Karl Marx united Germany. As such, the image is as rare as the women it depicts.
surrounding flowers—the calla lily’s purity and the fertile rank growth of (1818–1883), and in 1862 went on to publish an account of a later visit
a passion fruit—expands this dualism into a juxtaposition of virtue and with Jenny in London in the Leipziger Sonntagsblatt. After the marriage
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passion, a juxtaposition that prompted Friedrich Fries (1865–1954) in 1926 to a wealthy manufacturer, cut short after two years by her husband’s
to suggest an immediate influence of Seel’s teacher, Carl Friedrich Sohn, unexpected death in 1860, she took up writing under the pseudonym

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and his 1834 canvas Two Leonores (Cat. 13b). Given the age of the

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