Max Klinger's Galatea Sculpture | MetCollects

Curator Denise Allen discusses Max Klinger’s "Galatea" and its provenance.

Featured Artwork:
Max Klinger (German, 1857–1920). Galatea, 1906. Cast silver; marble, 43 3/4 x 12 1/2 x 18 3/4 in. (111.1 x 31.8 x 47.6 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Bequest of Emma A. Sheafer, by exchange, Anonymous and Charles Hack and the Hearn Family Trust Gifts, and Gifts of Irwin Untermyer and Mrs. Robert M. Hillas, by exchange, 2018 (2018.25a, b)

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Additional works by Max Klinger originally owned by the Kirsteins:

In the Park, from A Love (Opus X), 1887. Pen and black ink and black chalk heightened with white bodycolor, 16 3/8 x 9 7/8 in. (41.6 x 25.1 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Friends of Drawings and Prints Fund, and Ian Woodner Family Collection and Mr. and Mrs. Francis D. Logan Funds, 2019 (2019.67)
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/820845

Three Studies of Heads of Women, 1883. Pen and black ink, 12 1/4 x 10 3/8 in. (31.1 x 26.4 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Alexander B.V. Johnson and Roberta J.M. Olson, 2012 (2012.539.3)
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/423581

Recto: Phantasie und Künstler (Imagination and the Artist); Verso: Studie zu Phantasie und Künstler (Study for Fantasy Artists), 1873. Pen and black ink, black chalk and pencil; Verso: Pencil and pen and black ink. Promised Gift L.2019.7.2

Paar im Grase–Umarmung in einer Landschaft (A Couple on the Grass–An Embrace in a Landscape),1883. Pen and brown ink and pale brown wash. Promised Gift L.2018.10.1

Historical photographs of Galatea, first published in 1907, photographer unknown

Photograph by Louis Held of Klinger and Galatea at the Third Exhibition of the Artists Society, Weimar, 1906, courtesy of Daxer & Marschall.

Family photographs and Gustav Kirstein's poem courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York.

© 2019 The Metropolitan Museum of Art