Bildnis Ellen Warburg

1905

Edvard Munch1863 Løten (Hedmark) – 1944 Ekely (Oslo)
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Helene Julie Warburg, called Ellen (1877-1943), from the Warburg family of bankers in Hamburg, is depicted. The picture was commissioned by her parents Albert and Gerta Warburg. Ellen married the lawyer Edgar Burchard. The painting was prepared with a large pastel (see Edvard Munch in Schweizer Sammlungen, Basel 1985, no. 12).</br>The portrait depicts the 28-year-old Helene Julie Warburg, known as Ellen (1877–1942). She grew up in a liberal Jewish family of bankers in Hamburg and studied medicine. After graduating, she married the Protestant Reformed lawyer Edgar Burchard; the couple had four children. Under the Nazi regime during the Second World War, the Burchards were scheduled for deportation in 1942. Edgar took his own life shortly before they were due to leave, and Ellen was transported a day later to Auschwitz, where she was murdered. Their belongings were seized by the Nazi state. The portrait was commissioned by Ellen’s mother Gerta Warburg, and hung in the parents’ house. She loaned it to the Kunsthaus Zürich for an extensive solo exhibition by Munch in 1922. It remained on loan at the museum, and was later purchased by Alfred Rütschi and donated to the Kunsthaus Zürich in 1929.
Also known as
Portrait of Ellen Warburg
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
image: 180 x 100 cm
Inventory number
1462
Credit line
Kunsthaus Zürich, Donated by Alfred Rütschi, 1922