This is the rating and price for Otto Mueller 1874-1930

Description : liegendes madchen (reclining girl) signed with the initials distemper on burlap 60 by 105cm., 23I by 41Din. Provenance Friedrich Carl Siemens, Berlin (acquired by the family of the present owner in Berlin by the early 1930s) Mueller was fascinated by the intriguing and alluring world of the gypsies and gypsy girls appear naked or semi-clad in many of his paintings throughout his career. From her jet black hair, olive skin tone and bohemian dress, the model in the present work appears to be a Zigeunerin - a gypsy girl. During the early 1920s, the artist began to explore the gypsy colonies in Dalmatia. Mueller himself was rumoured to be part-gypsy and he drew an endless source of subject matter and inspiration from the contact he made with this free, nature-loving culture, living outside the norms and mainstream of German society. Barry Herbert writes of Mueller's vision thus: '[Mueller's art] is a poetic vision of a fantasy dream world incorporating influences that ranged from ancient Egypt to Ludwig von Hofmann... from Lucas Cranach's ambiguously erotic female nudes (Mueller kept a reproduction of Cranach's Venus on his studio wall) to the work of Wilhelm Lehmbruck whose 'limb architecture' was generally considered to be the best Contemporary Expressionist Sculpture' (Herbert, German Expressionists, 'Die Brucke' and 'Der Blaue Reiter', London, 1983, p. 64). Liegendes Madchen combines the 'ambiguously erotic' that Mueller saw in Cranach with the angular, expressive 'limb architecture' that the great Expressionist sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck had pioneered in the first decades of the century, a combination that imbues the painting with an enduring presence and simple, yet monumental grace. Mueller's admiration for the forms and chalky surfaces of Egyptian wall paintings contributed to the development of his distinctive style and technique as evident in the present work. Discussing Mueller's technique, Peter Selz notes that by 1908 Mueller '... had rediscovered the peculiar qualities of distemper (Leimfarbe), which medium permitted the unified application of liquid paint in thin layers over large planes. He was thus able to attain an effect like fresco, even tapestry. Kirchner, in the Chronik der Brucke said simply: ''He introduced us to the fascination of distemper technique'' (Peter Selz, German Expressionist Painting, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1957, p. 115).
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