Nov 05, 2013 - Sale 2329

Sale 2329 - Lot 84

Price Realized: $ 60,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 50,000 - $ 75,000
EDVARD MUNCH
Der Tod im Ktankenzimmer.

Lithograph printed in black on cream laid paper, 1896. 400x550 mm; 15 3/4x21 3/4 inches, wide margins. Signed in pencil, lower right, and inscribed "No. 50 ---" in pencil, lower left. Likely an impression printed by Nielsen, from an unknown edition size (there were also printings by Auguste Clos, Paris, edition of 30; and Lasally, printed after 1906, unknown edition size). A superb, dark impression of this very scarce, early lithograph.

This lithograph, based on Munch's same-title painting from 1895 (and now in the Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo), is among the artist's iconic images of death and suffering. The focus is not on the death, suggested by the bed near the background center of the composition, but rather on the individual grief and rather isolated suffering of each of the figures--the young man at the door upper left, the woman facing the viewer lower center and the seated woman in profile in front of her, as well as the figures around and seated figure in the chair upper right. Schiefler 73; Woll 65.