EDUARD CHARLEMONT (Vienna 1848 – Vienna 1906)
The Card Game
signed E. Charlemont in the lower right
oil on panel
49 x 36 5/8 inches (124.5 x 93 cm)
PROVENANCE
Zschörner Collection, 1932
Private Collection, Austria, 2013
LITERATURE
Künstlerhaus Archives, Vienna, 1932, no. 1840
Starting in the 1870’s and by the 1880’s onwards in what would become a tidal wave, foreign artists from all over the world became enamored with all things Dutch, and arrived in droves to search for what they considered to be the “true” Holland.[1] For many this quest came to rest within its numerous fishing villages whose very existence was felt to “emphasize the intrinsic value of everyday life”.[2] Simultaneously other painters hoped to capture its “golden past”. Outsiders regarded The Netherlands as 50 years behind the times. “Industrialization had begun later (there) ... than its European neighbors and people abroad retained an image of it that had originally been formed by the work of the seventeenth century masters.”[3] Among these visitors was Eduard Charlemont and in The Card Game both ideals are ingeniously blended.
Charlemont was the son of the painter Matthias Adolf Charlemont, and the brother of Hugo a painter and engraver as well as Theodor a sculptor. By 1863 he was already a drawing instructor at a girls’ secondary school. He studied at the Vienna Academy under Eduard Engerth, and by 1870 had importantly entered the atelier of Hans Makart. Makart further encouraged him to complete his studies in Italy and particularly Venice, with later travels to Holland, Germany, and Tunisia. Charlemont would eventually settle in Paris for thirty years and achieve great success. There he was represented by the dealer extraordinaire Charles Sedelmeyer who specialized in Austro – Hungarian painters. “For many of his contemporaries, Sedelmeyer represented the epitome of a gallery owner; Emile Zola, Guy de Maupassant and Frank Wedekind even included his persona in their novels and plays”. Charlemont exhibited in the Paris salons and in 1878 received an honorable mention, a third-class medal in 1885, as well as a bronze medal at the Legion of Honour in 1895. His works became much sought after and was especially renowned for his portraits, particularly those of children. He further executed genre subjects that emulated the styles of Pieter de Hooch, Frans van Mieris, Johannes Vermeer and Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier all of whom he idolized. He was equally famous for executing large paintings and murals. He completed three massive ceiling paintings for the Burg Theater in Vienna. Other works by the artist are in the Wien Museum, Vienna, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Oblastni Galerie V. Liberci, Liberec, Czech Republic.[4]
As to his Dutch sojourns, we know that Charlemont was in Haarlem in 1876, and again in 1884 at that time in the company of Eugene Jettel, a fellow Austrian artist who specialized in landscapes. The duration of these trips is unknown. These visits provided the wellspring from which Charlemont produced paintings that reimagined the seventeenth century as still enduring. A number of these works can be found in the Liberec museum. The core of their collection was bequeathed by Baron Heinrich van Liebieg, a lifelong friend of Charlemont and for whom the artist acted in an advisory capacity. The Baron eventually owned 28 of his paintings, a fact recently celebrated in the 2018 show The Charlemont Phenomenon – Eduard – Hugo – Theodor at the Liberec museum. In a number of these paintings the same young woman as in The Card Game is featured.[5]
Enveloped in a golden glow that emulates the Dutch masters, Charlemont’s The Card Game recalls Pieter de Hooch’s intimate domestic scenes that featured the eternal bond between a young mother and her child, just on a grander scale. The mother whose dress would be appropriate in a De Hooch, has ceased mending the fishing net draped across her lap to play a game of cards with her daughter. (Typically a tear occurred every time a net was hauled up, creating the need for constant mending. The mesh was repaired using a wooden shuttle or net needle.[6]) Judging by the young girl’s expression along with the mother’s smile, a serious point in the game has been reached. The foot warmer, wooden shoes, and model sailboat framed by the rear window, serve to underscore the simplicity of their world and its modest pleasures.
In particular the Dutch fishing communities were viewed as inhabited by pious, honest, happy and healthy individuals. Further it was thought that they were immune to such social ills as alcoholism due to the stoicism, resilience, and bravery required by their livelihood one which was completely dependent upon the sea.[7] In a period of ever-changing growth and industrialization that characterized the waning years of the nineteenth century, such beliefs provided enormous comfort and reassurance. The pictorial realization provided by Charlemont in The Card Game would have proved irresistible and is the reason why it still resonates.
We would like to extend sincere thanks to Paul Rachler of the Künstlerhaus, Vienna and to Sabine Craft-Giepmans of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague for their assistance in the writing of this entry.
[1] Ivo Blom, “Of Artists and Tourists: ‘Locating’ Holland in Two Early German Films” in A Second Life German Cinema’s First Decades, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 1996, pp. 247 - 248.
[2] Ronald de Leeuw, John Sillevis, & Charles Dumas, eds., “Josef Israels, The Cottage Madonna” in The Hague School, Dutch Masters of the 19th Century, Haags Gemeentemuseum, 1983, p. 191.
[3] Ronald de Leeuw, “Introduction” in The Hague School, op.cit., p.14.
[4] Biographical information taken from John Denison Champlin, Jr. & Charles C. Perkins, eds., “Eduard Charlemont” in Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, volume I, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887, p. 271; A Collection of Paintings Representing Leading Masters of the Early English and Modern European Schools, catalogue The Sedelmeyer Galleries, Paris at the Ortgies Galleries, New York, 1898, p. 46; Thieme-Becker, “Eduard Charlemont” in Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler, volume VI, Veb E.A. Seeman Verlag, Leipzig, p. 392; E. Benezit, “Eduard Charlemont” in Dictionnaire des Painters, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, volume 2, Libraire Gründ, 1976, p. 672 Walter Koschatzky, Viennese Watercolors, Henry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York, p. 274; “Eduard Charlemont” on rkd.nl (RKD Explore) website; Christian Huemer, “Charles Sedelmeyer’s Theatricality: Art and Speculation in Late 19th Century Paris” in Artwork through the Market: The Past and the Present, Bratislava: Slovak Academy of Sciences, 2004, p. 112; and Christian Huemer “Globetrotting Wall Paintings: Munkacsy, Sedelmeyer, and the Vienna Künstlerhaus” in Fine Art Connoisseur, September / October, 2012, p. 59.
[5] “Heinrich von Liebieg” on rkd.nl (RKD Explore) website; and www.ogl.cz Oblastni gallery Liberec.
[6] Boris O. Knacke, “Methods of Net Mending” in Fishery Leaflet 241, United States Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, D.C., May 1947, pp.1, 5, 6.
[7] Annette Stott, Holland Mania, The Overlook Press, Woodstock, New York, 1998, pp. 60, 62 – 63; and Brian Dudley Barrett, Volendam Artists Village, The Heritage of Hotel Spander, uitgeverij d’jonge Hond, Zuiderzeemuseum, 2009, pp. 46, 132, 144, 150, 154.