Self-Portrait with His Wife and a Glass of Champagne

The Self-Portrait with His Wife and a Glass of Champagne in the catalog raisonné (BC 234),Selbstporträt mit seiner Frau und Sektglas. In: Charlotte Berend-Corinth: Lovis Corinth. Werkverzeichnis. Neu bearbeitet von Béatrice Hernad. Bruckmann Verlag, München 1992, ISBN 3-7654-2566-4, p. 88 (full: Self-portrait with Charlotte Berend and champagne goblet; Gerhard Leistner: Selbstporträt mit Charlotte Berend und Sektkelch. In: Ulrike Lorenz, Marie-Amelie Prinzessin zu Salm-Salm, Hans-Werner Schmidt (Hrsg.): Lovis Corinth und die Geburt der Moderne. Kerber, Bielefeld/Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-86678-177-1, p. 58–59.), is a painting by the German painter Lovis Corinth. The double portrait shows himself and his painting student and later wife Charlotte Berend, who is sitting on his lap with her upper body unclothed and is being embraced by him while he raises a glass. It was created as an engagement painting in Corinth's studio in Berlin in October 1902, a few months before the marriage of the two sitters. The painting, painted in oil on canvas and measuring 98.5 × 108.5 centimetres, is privately owned.

Description The painting shows the artist Lovis Corinth and his later wife Charlotte Berend in the form of a portrait of a couple embracing from the front. Corinth is seated on a chair not visible to the viewer and holds a bottle with a red champagne in his left hand raised towards the viewer. Berend sits on Corinth's right thigh and holds Corinth's shoulders with her arm, her hand resting on the man's left shoulder. She is holding the stem of a flower with a white blossom hanging downwards. Corinth is wearing a green jacket and a white shirt underneath, which is open over his chest. Charlotte Berend's upper body is completely bare and her right arm is hanging down, her hand resting on the fabric of the flowing dress around her hips. With his right arm, Corinth embraces Charlotte Berend's unclothed upper body. His hand, passed under her armpit between her upper arm and ribcage, presses her breast, revealing the nipple between his index and middle fingers. He is leaning his cheek against the woman's naked shoulder, both people looking at the viewer with a smile. The light falls on Charlotte Berend's upper body, so that her shoulder and the right half of her body appear bright, while Corinth's face is in shadow behind her body and is correspondingly darker. According to Beat Wyss, the "amorous Corinth" is "snuggling in the shadow of his half-naked lover, who is sitting on his lap".Beat Wyss: Das Selbstporträt als Historie, der moderne Rembrandt. In: Ulrike Lorenz, Marie-Amelie Prinzessin zu Salm-Salm, Hans-Werner Schmidt (Hrsg.): Lovis Corinth und die Geburt der Moderne. Kerber, Bielefeld/Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-86678-177-1, p. 312–319.

The background is the wall of a room, which forms a corner with the adjacent wall on the left-hand side. In the corner is a round table covered with a white tablecloth. On it are a bottle of red champagne, two empty champagne bowls, some flowers in a tall vase and, at the front edge, a fruit plate filled with apples and grapes; the picture is signed in the upper left-hand field and dated October 1902 in the upper right-hand margin.

Background and classification

Chronological classification Corinth's encounter with Charlotte Berend and their relationship coincided with the time when he was settling in Berlin. He had completed his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, in the 1890s. The version of Salome he painted in 1900, a nude painting in a historical setting based on the literary model by Oscar Wilde and showing Salome, daughter of Herodias, with the severed head of John the Baptist, was not to be exhibited at the Munich Secession. Corinth then gave the painting to Walter Leistikow in Berlin, who accepted it for the Berlin Secession exhibition. Due to the great success of the work, Corinth changed his place of residence shortly afterwards and moved to Berlin.Zdenek Felix: Der Werdegang eines Außenseiters. In: Zdenek Felix (Ed.): Lovis Corinth 1858–1925. Publication accompanying the exhibition at the Folkwang Museum Essen (November 10, 1985 - January 12, 1986) and at the Kunsthalle der Hypno-Kulturstiftung Munich (January 24 - March 30, 1986). DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1985, ISBN 3-7701-1803-0, p. 17–18.

The painting Self-Portrait with Charlotte Berend and Champagne Glass is one of the earliest paintings by Lovis Corinth in which he portrayed his future wife Charlotte Berend (1880–1967). Corinth met the then 21-year-old woman in 1901, after he had opened a painting school for young women in Berlin. Charlotte Berend, the daughter of a Jewish merchant family,Lovis Corinth: Petermannchen. Porträt Charlotte Corinth. Image description on the homepage of the Jewish Museum Berlin, retrieved on May 13, 2015. was his first pupil, and she modeled for him regularly thereafter.

In 1902, he traveled with her to the Baltic Sea, where they vacationed together in Horst in Pomerania, today Niechorze. Corinth portrayed her several times that year. The painting Petermannchen and the painting Paddle Petermannchen were both created during their seaside vacation.Lothar Brauner: Paddel-Petermannchen, 1902. In: Peter-Klaus Schuster, Christoph Vitali, Barbara Butts (Hrsg.): Lovis Corinth. Prestel, München 1996, ISBN 3-7913-1645-1, p. 148.Lothar Brauner: Petermannchen, 1902. In: Peter-Klaus Schuster, Christoph Vitali, Barbara Butts (Hrsg.): Lovis Corinth. Prestel, München 1996, ISBN 3-7913-1645-1, p. 149. During their stay in Horst, the relationship between Lovis Corinth and Charlotte Berend deepened and they became lovers. Berend later described in her memoirs My Life with Lovis Corinth how they both sat closely together on a jetty and she told him the story of her first marriage proposal.Charlotte Berend-Corinth: Mein Leben mit Lovis Corinth. Paul List Verlag, München 1958, p. 116–118. The painting Self-portrait with Charlotte Berend and champagne goblet was created after a short vacation in Tutzing on Lake Starnberg, an "early honey moon", and was regarded by Corinth as an engagement picture. According to her memoirs, Charlotte Berend-Corinth described its creation as follows:

According to his own statements, Lovis Corinth and Charlotte Berend, who opted for the double name Berend-Corinth, married the following year on March 26, 1903. According to the Charlottenburg registry office, the wedding did not take place until March 1904 - this personal "bringing forward" is explained by the fact that their son Thomas Corinth was born on October 13, 1904, meaning that the bride was already pregnant at the time of the wedding.Margret Greiner: Charlotte Berend-Corinth und Lovis Corinth: Ich will mir selbst gehören. Verlag Herder, 2016; o. S. (Google Books).

Classification in the artistic work The painting Self-Portrait with Charlotte Berend and Champagne Goblet can be classified in many ways in Lovis Corinth's oeuvre, whereby its function as a double portrait and at the same time as a self-portrait and portrait of Charlotte Berend, later Charlotte Berend-Corinth, stands in the foreground. Corinth created numerous self-portraits, usually painting one for each of his birthdays. According to Carl Georg Heise, he left behind 42 paintings with self-portraits, as well as numerous sketches, drawings and graphic sheets with his portrait. He painted around 80 paintings of his wife,Inszenierte Intimität: Charlotte Berend-Corinth. In: Michael F. Zimmermann: Lovis Corinth. Reihe Beck Wissen bsr 2509. C. H. Beck, München 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-56935-7; p. 104–110 (here 104, 105). in which he explicitly depicted her - in addition, there are numerous other pictures in which she posed for him without this being particularly emphasized.Carl Georg Heise: Lovis Corinth - Bildnisse der Frau des Künstlers. (= Werkmonographien zur bildenden Kunst in Reclams Universal-Bibliothek. Nr. 26). Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1958, p. 4. He noted that Corinth's portraits turned out to be particularly passionate the more personal they became for him, and it was therefore easy to understand "which portrait models ignited Corinth's artistic genius most passionately: his own appearance and that of those closest to him."

When he met Charlotte Berend as his pupil in 1901, Corinth was already an established and well-trained painter who had already gained recognition for his works, particularly in the Berlin art scene around the Berlin Secession. He had also previously attracted attention for his self-portraits and nudes, so these subjects were not new territory for him. On the other hand, his liaison with Charlotte Berend was a turning point in his life, as he had not previously committed himself to a woman. This relationship began in 1902, and from this year onwards Charlotte Berend became a motif and model in his work. According to Charlotte Berend-Corinth's memory, he asked her for the first time in 1901 at the end of the semester if he could paint a portrait of her. He planned the Portrait of Charlotte Berend in a White Dress with her, which he later signed and gave to her. Before that, however, he painted the picture Mask in a white dress, as Berend had also brought a black silk scarf and a black mask with her dress.Charlotte Berend-Corinth: Maske im weißen Kleid, 1902. In: Carl Georg Heise: Lovis Corinth - Bildnisse der Frau des Künstlers. (= Werkmonographien zur bildenden Kunst in Reclams Universal-Bibliothek. Nr. 26). Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1958, p. 18–19.

According to the art historian Alfred Kuhn, who published his biography in 1925 after Corinth's death, the relationship with Charlotte Corinth marked the beginning of "a new epoch in the painter's work" and "the heavy man, the hulking giant became a child, the bull walked tamely and willingly on the leash led by a young girl".Alfred Kuhn: Lovis Corinth. Propyläen-Verlag. Berlin 1925, p. 86–90. He was referring to the portrait Girl with Bull, which, like the Petermannchen, was painted on their first journey together.Hans-Werner Schmidt: Mädchen mit Stier, 1902 / Petermannchen, 1902. In: Ulrike Lorenz, Marie-Amélie zu Salm-Salm, Hans-Werner Schmidt: Lovis Corinth und die Geburt der Moderne. Catalog on the occasion of the retrospective on the 150th birthday of Lovis Corinth (1858–1925) in Paris, Leipzig and Regensburg. Kerber publishing house, Bielefeld 2005, ISBN 3-86678-177-6, p. 214–215. This picture, in which Charlotte Berend leads and strokes a powerful bull by the nose ring, attracted particular attention in the Berlin Secession because of the meaning it contained: symbolically, it showed the couple's current relationship, in which Corinth, as a tamed bull, was led around by the woman on a pink ribbon by the nose ring.

Interpretation and reception Reference to Rembrandt