Lesser Ury Lot n° 112

Lesser Ury Bust portrait of a lady with a purple hat 1900-1905 Pastel on card. 92 x 70.5 cm (vertical oval). Framed under glass in original frame. Signed 'L. Ury.' in pencil upper left. - In very fine condition. With a photo-certificate and an expertise by Sibylle Groß, Berlin, dated April 22, 2024; the pastel will be included in the forthcoming catalog raisonné on Lesser Ury. Provenance Private ownership; Leo Spik, Berlin, auction 497, 8/9.7.1976, lot 268; private ownership Berlin; Leo Spik, Berlin, auction 530, 11-13.10.1984, lot 448; private ownership Berlin The "Portrait of a Lady with a Purple Hat" is a special feature of Lesser Ury's oeuvre due to the full-length depiction of the young woman and the large oval format. More than almost any other of his works, it captivates with its masterful treatment of pastel chalks and the delicate choice of colors with dark blue, violet and delicate incarnate tones. The drawing on offer fulfills the classic pictorial type of the representative portrait. The young woman, captured in half-length, is placed prominently in the foreground. The pale skin of the face, the white lace collar and the alert gaze with a hint of a smile draw all attention to the pretty woman's face. As is usually only the case in his interiors, this portrait reveals Lesser Ury's orientation towards the late work of the Berlin old master Adolph Menzel. In the late 1880s, at a ripe old age and honored many times by officials, Menzel had championed the still unknown Ury and recommended him for the Michael Beer Prize of the Royal Academy of Arts. With regard to the pastel technique so characteristic of Menzel and the emphasis on the decorated hat, Ury may have based our portrait on Menzel's drawings, such as that of a "Woman with Hat in Lost Profile" from 1891 (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett). The bravura handling of the pastels in this early work can also be traced back to Menzel.