Henry Niestlé, Seated Nude, 1909.

Henry Niestlé (1876–1966)
Seated Young Woman, Pasing, November 1909 — Oil on cardboard, monogrammed and dated; “Pasing” label on the verso.

Dated November 1909, on the outskirts of Munich, this oil on cardboard is a unique testimony to Niestlé’s Munich period. At the crossroads of the Munich Secession (1892) and the inquiries that led, from 1909 onward, to the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (Kandinsky, Jawlensky, Münter, Werefkin), the work condenses the spirit of a modernity in the making. The light support, lively yet disciplined touch, restrained palette, and tight composition belong to the finished study: a concise, autonomous form in which the synthesis of planes and the rightness of relations are tested.
The subject—a seated young woman, without narrative attributes—answers the concerns of the time: to explore presence rather than anecdote, between Jugendstil heritage, formal simplification, and interiority. The precise mention “Pasing” anchors the work in a microcosm of studios, private classes, and small galleries that fed Munich’s scene and the neighboring Dachau colony (Hölzel, Dill).
By its exact date, clear location, and quality of execution, this painting offers a rare marker for the history of art in Germany around 1909: it records, at studio scale, the passage from late naturalism to a more synthetic pictorial language. In this sense, it illuminates Niestlé’s trajectory as much as the Munich avant-garde landscape, of which it remains a singular and valuable document.

A detailed catalogue entry is available upon request.