0012
George Minne
(Gent 1866 - 1941 Laethem-St. Martin)
„Kneeling Young Man ("Le Grand Agenouillé")“
1898/c.1903
bronze, cast, dark patinated; signed on the base "G. Minne 1903"; excellent condition
h. 83 cm
design: 1898
execution: c. 1903
Provenance
private property, Germany;
Auction House im Kinsky, 20.06.2013, no. 669;
Austrian private collection
Literature
cf.: Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Gand, Exposition Minne - Maeterlinck L'univers de George Minne et Maurice Maeterlinck, Gent 2011, p. 231, cat.-no. 105;
cf.: Bisanz-Prakken, Janssen, van Wezel Toorop/Klimt - Toorop in Wenen: Inspiratie voor Klimt, Ausstellung in Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag and Albertina Vienna, Den Haag 2006
Reserve Price: € 90.000 +fees +if applicable Droit de Suite
The same fees apply for bids at the reserve price as during the auction and a knockdown can take place immediately after processing.Estimate: € 60.000 - 120.000
The Auction House reserves the right to request a deposit, bank guarantee or comparable other security in the amount of 10% of the upper estimate. Please also note that purchase orders and accreditation requests must be received by the auction house up to 24 hours before the auction in order to guarantee complete processing.
For the eighth Secession exhibition of 1900, Georg Minne designed a fountain with five boys kneeling at its edge. The exhibition, at which a total of 14 of Minne's sculptures were displayed, brought him his international artistic breakthrough; and his sculpture “kneeling youth” – essentially derived from the kneeling five boys at the so-called “Libre Esthétique” fountain in Brussels – became a symbol of Modernism. Based on the Gothic idea of form, George Minne stylised his exaggeratedly slender, austere figures of youths, naked in silent, anguished emotion in accordance with strict static-tectonic laws, which always seem to make reference to an (imaginary) architecture.
Ludwig Hevesi, the most famous Austrian art publicist of the time, wrote about the Secession exhibition in 1900: “George Minne takes the cake for the bizarre. Here you can see the round fountain that made him famous and infamous a few years ago. Minne's view resembles those puzzling mirrors in which the human figure appears elongated and gaunt. (...) There is a fervour and spirituality in these miserable figures that can only be portrayed again in our time. A parched glow of devotion, theology paired with osteology” (Ludwig Hevesi, Acht Jahre Secession [“Eight years of the Secession”]).