EXCEEDINGLY RARE 1890s MUNCH MASTERPIECE TO HIGHLIGHT MAY 4 EVENING SALE AT CHRISTIE'S NEW YORK NEVER BEFORE OFFERED AT AUCTION, "FERTILITY" IS ONE OF ONLY A FEW MASTER WORKS BY MUNCH LEFT IN PRIVATE HANDS
News-Antique.com - Apr 14,2010 - Caption - Edvard Munch (1863-1945) Fertility, oil on canvas
Estimate: $25,000,000 - 35,000,000
New York - Christie's is delighted to announce it will offer Edvard Munch's Fertility (estimate: $25-
35 million) - one of the most important works by the artist remaining in private hands - as the cover
lot of its upcoming Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on May 4. Painted in the late
1890s, Fertility was originally purchased in 1902 by Dr. Max Linde, the German patron responsible
for helping Munch establish his career in Germany. Since 1918, the large-format painting has
remained in private collections in Scandinavia, with periodic loans to prestigious museum and gallery
exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States. The upcoming sale marks the first occasion
that the work has ever been offered at public auction.
Conor Jordan, Head of Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie’s New York, comments:
“Edvard Munch remains one of the most fascinating and influential artists of the Modern era - a pioneer of the
Expressionist movement who sought to explore the deeper, universal truths of the human condition through art. We
are delighted to present this exceedingly rare opportunity to acquire a true masterpiece from the most desirable period of
Munch’s career. Beyond this painting’s pure aesthetic beauty, its rich, layered narrative, beautifully-worked surface,
and remarkable state of preservation all combine to make this a highly sought-after prize for collectors, with recordbreaking
potential on auction night.”
At nearly 4 feet high by 4½ feet wide, Fertility is the one of the largest works of Munch's early career.
Rendered in verdant greens with rich orange, red, and yellow accents, the painting’s focal point is a
lush fruit tree laden with ripe red cherries. A man and woman dressed in rustic work clothes stand
facing each other on either side of the tree, creating a tableau reminiscent of Adam and Eve before
the Tree of Life. Though the woman’s visible pregnancy and the scene’s lush greenery seem to
communicate a theme of regeneration and hope, a fresh wound – as from a newly-cut bough –
mars the tree trunk between the two figures and lends the scene an ominous, unsettled element.
Painted in the final years of the 1890s, Fertility - alternatively titled Fruitfulness - dates from a period
of Munch’s career characterized by remarkable creative output and difficult personal affairs. In
1898, he commenced a relationship with Tulla Larsen, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy wine
merchant from Kristiania, as Olso was then called. Unlike Munch, whose father was a devout
military doctor, Tulla was part of the moneyed bourgeois class. Their affair was a tumultuous one,
and although plans were made for the pair to wed, the relationship came to a violent end in 1902,
when an argument led to a self-inflicted gun-shot wound that took off part of a finger on Munch’s
left hand. Scholars suggest the red-haired woman depicted in Fertility, and in an earlier, possibly
related work Metabolism, is likely Tulla.
A controversial figure
