Kopf der Schwester Herma mit Marienblümchenkranz auf dem Hut. Um 1901.
Oil on canvas, laid down on board.
Busch/Werner 156. 46.5 x 38.5 cm (18.3 x 15.1 in).

• Characteristic head on portrait of her sister Herma,who was one of her favorite models.
• This is the first time ever that a portrait of the artist's sister is offered on the auction marke (source: artprice).
• Made in Worpswede in spring of 1901 after Becker's return from Paris.
• Shown at the Paula Modersohn-Becker commemorative exhibition at Bremer Kunsthalle in 1920.
• Comprehensive provenance going back to the 1920s.

PROVENANCE: Graphisches Kabinett, Bremen (in the 1920s).
Collection Delius, Bremen.
Collection Ludwig Roselius, Bremen (around 1934).
Lühmann, Bremen.
Collection Theodor Kiefer, Kaiserslautern (1951).
Private collection Freiburg (since 1990).

EXHIBITION: Commemorative exhibition Paula Modersohn-Becker, Bremer Kunsthalle, Bremen, April to May 1920, cat. no. 658 (journal).
Freundschaftsspiel. Collection Haas, Museum für neue Kunst, Freiburg, September 28, 2013 - January 26, 2014, p. 12 (with full-page color illu.).
30 + 30 retro/perspektiv, Museum für neue Kunst, Freiburg, March 14 - June 7, 2015, without cat. no. (with a text from Andreas Stichmann).

LITERATURE: Gustav Pauli, Werkverzeichnis der Arbeiten Paula Modersohn-Beckers (third extended edition), Berlin 1934, cat. no. 96b (with the title "Brustbild eines jungen Mädchens").
Gabriele Werner, Die Bildnisse der Schwester Herma, in: ex. cat. Paula Modersohn-Becker. Von Dresden her, Galerie Neue Meister/Albertinum, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden 2003/2004, pp. 60f. (with black-and-white illu. on p. 58).
"Attaining highest simplicity through most intimate observation, that's greatness."
Paula Modersohn-Becker, quote after: Günter Busch and Wolfgang Werner (editors), Paula Modersohn-Becker. Catalog raisonné of paintings, vol. I, Munich 1998, p. 30.