Pamono Conrad Kiesel, The Gift of Flowers, 1890s, Oil Painting> Art Nouveau

Conrad Kiesel (1846-1921), The gift of flowers. Oil on wood, 43 x 35 cm, 69 x 61 cm (frame), signed at lower left “Conrad Kiesel pxt [pinxit]”, about 1900. In a magnificent gilt stucco frame of the period. with an old London gallery label on the reverse.

– Major retouching by the artist himself to lighten the incarnate. The painting is in very good condition, the frame partially rubbed and bumped.

– The depth of allegory –

At first glance, Conrad Kiesel illustrates Flora, the goddess of blossom and spring, and yet the figure depicted does not fit into the traditional iconography. Flora has neither black hair nor does she wear a laurel wreath. Based on traditional imagery, Conrad Kiesel creates a novel allegory that includes eros, death, and the triumph of art over death alongside the unfolding of life.

The flowers illustrate the blossoming life whose beauty is before our eyes in the young woman. The flowers seem to formally turn towards her, and her antiquing gray-blue robe has a folded structure related to the flowers, so that it in turn seems like a calyx of blossoms from which the youthful beauty emerges. The garment not only allows a view of her upper arm, which animates the imagination of the shoulder and the tracing of the elegant neck line, where the two pink chrysanthemums ‘look’ at the youthful beauty, the garment is translucent, so that her breast becomes visible in a game of concealment and revelation.

The blossoming life imbued with Eros is contrasted by the black hair and dark eye sockets, allegorically introducing the dimension of death into the motif. But the young woman is also crowned with the laurel wreath of eternal glory, so that the flora becomes Victoria, illustrating that glory overcomes death. At the same time, the laurel wreath is also a symbol of poetry, making the young woman the personification of poetry and inspiration, as well as a muse. Consistent with this aspect of eternity, which refers to art itself, the yellowish background appears like a golden ground, against which the young woman appears like a saint.

Conrad Kiesel was especially sought after as a portraitist. In this painting, in which he did not follow a portrait commission, he had the freedom to follow his own pictorial ideas completely. He created a multi-layered allegory whose mysterious appeal lies in the fact that it cannot be definitively resolved.

The painting is an excerpt and allegorical intensification of his picture ‘Die Margareten’ in the Manchester Art Gallery, which in variation was also converted into painting by the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur (KPM).

While the oriental beauty is hawking the flowers there, the young woman in our picture takes two yellow flowers from the bouquet with an elegant gesture in order to offer them to the one whom her gaze has chosen and whose name her sensually open mouth already seems to pronounce.

The change from oriental beauty to allegory explains the retouching done to lighten the incarnate. This sensitivity to color is also evident in the decision to have the young woman remove two yellow flowers from the otherwise pink bouquet. Combined with the gray-blue of the garment, this creates a subtle, well-balanced tension of color.

About the artist

Conrad Kiesel first studied architecture at the Royal Academy of Architecture in Düsseldorf, but then transferred to the Berlin Academy of Arts to study sculpture with Fritz Schaper. After working as a sculptor for six years, he decided to become a painter, inspired by a trip to Holland. He was first a student of Fritz Paulsen in Berlin, then moved to Düsseldorf to study under Wilhelm Sohn.
“with Wilhelm Sohn he acquired colouristic skills which he quickly developed to the highest virtuosity, namely in the treatment of shiny silk and atlas fabrics”.
Adolf Rosenberg

After a stay in Munich, Conrad Kiesel settled in Berlin in 1885 and became a sought-after society and portrait painter in the highest circles. He painted portraits of Wilhelm II and the Empress Augusta. In 1886 he was appointed Royal Professor.
He was awarded the gold medal several times at the exhibitions of the Berlin Academy. His works were regularly exhibited at the Academy exhibitions in Düsseldorf and Vienna and at the Glass Palace in Munich. Internationally, he exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts and was represented in 1910 at the Paris, and 1911 at the Roman World’s Fair.