Hans Thoma (Bernau im Schwarzwald 1839 - 1924 Karlsruhe)
"Der Mondscheingeiger" ["The Moonlight Violinist"]
1897
color algraphy with silver heightening
42 x 53 cm
in the image, lower left, hand-signed in red: "Hans Thoma"
collection stamp of Dr. Jul. Hofmann, Wien (Lugt 1264)
The Daulton Collection
Provenance:
1899 acquired by Dr. Julius Hofmann (1840-1913), Vienna/Karlovy
Vary.
Dr. Hofmann was a medical doctor and member of the Board of Trustees of the Gesellschaft
für vervielfältigende Kunst [Society for Reproducing Art -- graphic art] in Vienna, who started collecting prints in 1878. In 1907, he published a catalogue of Goya's etchings and lithographs.
1913 by descent to Dr. Hofmann's son, Robert Hofmann, Vienna.
1922 Dr. Hofmann's print collection ("Kupferstichsammlung Dr. Julius Hofmann Wien") was sold by his son Robert at auction at C. G. Boerner, Leipzig, May
8-12, 1922; our print, "Der Mondscheingeiger," was Lot 1895.
"He [Dr. Julius Hofmann] was a collector of the old school, of that essentially extinct type that can only be described with the still untranslatable honorific title 'amateur.' He still believed in the importance of the states, of sharp or rounded plate corners, and gave burin slips, etching stains, and polished edges a loving attention that only the intimate contact with an old friend can bring. And his collection had always been an old friend to him. He knew no greater pleasure than to take a portfolio in quiet hours and tenderly examine each sheet, making the most meticulous notes on condition, literature, watermarks, and provenance for his exemplary card catalog. ... May each of [his collection's] pearls find its rightful home and there help foster and deepen the love and understanding for the history of the reproducing arts. This is probably also the best wish, in the spirit of its former owner, that we can offer as a preface to this catalog before the Julius Hofmann Collection shares the fate of so many famous sisters and is scattered to the four winds." Dresden, March 1922, Max Lehrs (1855-1938), art historian and long-time director of the Dresden Kupferstichkabinett. (Preface of Boerner auction catalogue, English-language translation of German-language original)
2014 The Daulton Collection, purchased at auction in Munich.
General References:
Joseph August Beringer, Hans Thoma (Munich: Bruckmann, 1922), Plate 72.
Writer Leo
Grünstein was inspired to write a poem about Han's Thoma's "The Moonlight Violinist," as acknowledged by Thoma in this 1917 manuscript postcard in The Daulton Collection:
