Portrait

Max Liebermann presented a likeness of the secret court councillor Wilhelm von Bode in the traditional profile. He used the technique of etching with dry point, with the help of which he created an extraordinary play of light and shadow, making the portrait very expressive and precise. He reproduced the facial features of the ageing man realistically. The seriousness of the sitter and his official rank were emphasised by the gesture of a slightly raised head. In 1915, the E.A. Seemann Publishing House originally published the composition made in 1914. The present print, printed on thick handmade paper, comes from the second edition, printed the same year after the plate had been corrected. It was published in the art journal “Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst NF” (new series), in the yearbook 26, volume 50, number 1.Arnold Wilhelm von Bode was born in 1845 in Calvörde and died in 1929 in Berlin. He studied law at the universities of Göttingen and Berlin. As a registrar in Braunschweig, he became interested in art history and put in order the princely art collection there while making study trips to Holland, Belgium, and Italy. In 1870, he obtained his doctoral degree after defending the thesis on Frans Hals and his school. In 1872, he took up a job in Berlin as a museologist, and in 1883, became director of the royal museums. In 1904, he founded the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin. From 1906 to 1920, he was the general director of the Prussian state art collections. His publications on painting and sculpture in Italy, Germany and the Netherlands were fundamental to the development of art history. In 1914, he received a knighthood in recognition of his merits.

Ewa Gwiazdowska