Watercolor over India ink
Jawlensky/Pieroni-Jawlensky 576. Signed lower left. Inscribed "Alexey von Jawlensky / Aquarell" on verso by a hand other than that of the artist. On slightly brownish paper. 14 x 16 cm (5,5 x 6,2 in), size of sheet

Accompanied by a photo expertise from Maria Jawlensky, Lucia Pieroni-Jawlensky and Angelica Jawlensky Bianconi, Locarno, dated 2 September 1999.

PROVENANCE: Private collection Vienna.
Galerie Schwarzer, Düsseldorf (with label on frame covering)
Private collection Rhineland.

Jawlensky began working with watercolors in 1905, however, an increased occupation with the medium did not begin before his stays in Murnau as of 1907. Similar to his artist colleagues Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter and Marianne von Werefkin, with whom he spent the summer months in Murnau, Jawlensky captured the surrounding mountains in watercolors of an intense coloring. He also employed these elements in a series of watercolors of flowers he made between 1914 and 1915. They are almost exclusively depicted in vases or pots in front of a colored background, emphasizing their intensive luminosity. Years later and with a sure line management and a high degree of concentration, the artist took on the motif of the flower still life in this small work. The background remains empty, any hint at a spatial context is avoided. In their simplicity and formal typification, Jawlensky added a cheerful, almost humorist notion to our flowers, of which one hangs over the pot’s rim with a broken stalk. [JS].