Thursday, December 18, 2014

Menzel Armor Study

This small study of armor by Adolph Menzel (1815-1905) sold at auction last month for two million Euros. The pre-sale estimate was estimated between €100,000 and €150,000.


Menzel did several studies of armor in the 1860s, and they all have a lifelike quality, as if they're animated and looking at you.

Link to article
Thanks, Christian
GJ Post on painting in an armory
at

5 comments:

  1. Chris AyersDecember 18, 2014 at 1:16 PM

    Beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tom HartDecember 18, 2014 at 1:31 PM

    What a great lesson on what you can do with an extremely limited palette (admittedly the subject matter is ideal for this). From the webpage cited, it appears to be gouache and pencil only on brown paper. The only colors I detect are black, white, blue and the paper's brown.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Robert Michael WalshDecember 18, 2014 at 2:29 PM

    You didn't reference your earlier related post http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2013/11/higgins-armory.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. Glenn TaitDecember 18, 2014 at 3:09 PM

    An amazing study, especially when you see how loosely painted it is. It looks like gouache to me as well.

    Wikimedia Commons has an excellent hi-rez image of "Armor Chamber Fantasy":
    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adolf_Menzel_-_%22Armor_Chamber_Fantasy%22,_1866_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  5. RichDecember 18, 2014 at 4:18 PM

    Menzel lived from 1815 - 1905.

    Who knows what James Gurney's sketchbook auction-pre-sale estimates will be in the year 2099?...and what they will be actually sold for?-)

    ReplyDelete

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