FRIEDRICH VIKTOR SPITZER (1854–1922) Lot n° 2

FRIEDRICH VIKTOR SPITZER (1854-1922) | Gustav Mahler, Vienna 1905 Image Size: 23,1 x 16,3 cm English: Vintage silver print on matte paper, mounted on original cardboard 40,3 x 32 cm with two decorative interleaves, in very good condition. LITERATURE Photographische Rundschau und Photographisches Zentralblatt, no. 20, 1906; Christine Kuehn, Kunstfotografie um 1900. Die Sammlung Fritz Matthies-Masuren, 1873-1938, cat. Kunstbibliothek Berlin 2003, p. 137; Gerd Pichler, "Joseph Maria Olbrich's never-built artists' colony in Vienna and Josef Hoffmann's artists' colony on the Hohe Warte," in ICOMOS 64, 2017, p. 83-88. The portrait shows the 45-year-old Mahler during the heyday of his directorship at the Vienna Court Opera, three years after his marriage to Alma Schindler. The portrait is one of the rare works by the sugar industrialist Friedrich Spitzer, who had been working intensively with photographic techniques and printing processes since 1895. In 1902, Spitzer had a villa built for himself in the artists' colony designed by Josef Hoffmann on Vienna's Hohe Warte and was thus the immediate neighbor of the painter Carl Moll, Alma's stepfather. Spitzer was present at the dinner at Berta Zuckerkandl's house where Alma and Gustav Mahler first met. As a gum print, the present portrait was shown in Spitzer's only exhibition in 1907, which he had together with Kühn at the Galerie Miethke; the date "05" visible on the original gum print is usually cropped in the published reproductions. The present silver gelatin print corresponds to the aesthetics of pictorialism; strong contrasts and sharpness were deliberately reduced by processing during positive development. German: Vintage silver gelatin print on matte paper, mounted on original cardboard 40,3 x 32 cm with two decorative interleaves, in very good condition. LITERATURE Photographische Rundschau and Photographisches Zentralblatt, no. 20, 1906; Christine Kühn, Kunstfotografie um 1900. Die Sammlung Fritz Matthies-Masuren, 1873-1938, cat. Kunstbibliothek Berlin 2003, p. 137; Gerd Pichler, "Joseph Maria Olbrich's never-built artists' colony in Vienna and Josef Hoffmann's artists' colony on the Hohe Warte," in ICOMOS 64, 2017, pp. 83-88. The portrait shows the 45-year-old Mahler during the heyday of his directorship at the Vienna Court Opera, three years after his marriage to Alma Schindler. The portrait is one of the rare works by the sugar industrialist Friedrich Spitzer, who had been intensively engaged in photographic techniques and noble printing processes since 1895. Spitzer had had a villa built for himself in 1902 in the artists' colony on the Hohe Warte in Vienna, designed by Josef Hoffmann, and was thus the immediate neighbor of the painter Carl Moll, Alma's stepfather. Spitzer was present at the dinner at Berta Zuckerkandl's house where Alma and Gustav Mahler first met. As a rubber print, the present portrait was shown in Spitzer's only exhibition in 1907, which he held jointly with Heinrich Kühn at the Miethke Gallery; the date "05" visible on the original rubber print is usually truncated in published reproductions. The present silver gelatin print corresponds to the aesthetics of pictorialism; strong contrasts and sharpness were deliberately reduced by influence during positive development.