Heinrich Kühn · c. 1909
Stillleben mit Obstschale (Still Life with Fruit Bowl)
- Year
- c. 1909
- Original process
- Oil print on paper (Ölumdruck)
- Held at
- Albertina Vienna
Key facts
- Edition
- Signed and numbered limited edition
- Authenticity
- Official certificate of authenticity
- Chemistry
- Non-toxic process (Vision Picturale recipes)
- Year
- c. 1909
- Original held at
- Albertina Vienna
- Public domain
- Since 2015 (CPI L.123-1)
- Printer
- Maison Picturale — Paris 20e studio
- Lead time
- Hand-made · 4 to 8 weeks
Maison Picturale reinterpretation in bromoil
About this work
Stillleben mit Obstschale (Still Life with Fruit Bowl, c. 1909) is a painterly still life measuring 29.3 by 39 cm, held by the Albertina Vienna. The print demonstrates Dr. Heinrich Kühn's command of the Ölumdruck (oil pigment transfer) process, in which a gelatin-and-bichromate matrix is selectively inked with greasy pigment and then transferred to paper, yielding a continuous tonal image close in surface to a lithograph or a charcoal drawing. The fruit bowl, lit with low-key directional light, allowed Kühn to deploy the medium's painterly virtues — broad tonal masses, suppressed highlights, a tactile pigment surface — on a classical studio subject inherited from the Dutch and German still-life tradition. Dr. Heinrich Kühn (1866-1944), Austrian-German pictorialist trained as a physician, settled in Innsbruck in 1888 and led the German-Austrian wing of international Pictorialism as a co-founder of the Wiener Kleeblatt (Vienna Trifolium) with Hans Watzek and Hugo Henneberg. He invented the Platingummidruck (gum-over-platinum) process and was a close correspondent of Alfred Stieglitz, who published him in Camera Work pl. 18 (1905) and pl. 33 (1911), and Edward Steichen. Kühn was among the first European photographers to adopt the Lumière Autochrome in 1907. His prints are held at the Albertina Vienna, MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Städel Museum Frankfurt, and Galerie Maier Innsbruck. Process Transposition Maison Picturale: the painterly pigment surface of Kühn's oil prints is transposed at the Maison Picturale Paris atelier via Aquaprint MP, the non-toxic Vision Picturale gum bichromate reformulation, which approximates the tonal mass of Stillleben without the historical dichromate hazard. Kühn entered the public domain in 2015.
Reference file : Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
Procédé Transposition
Each Maison Picturale print is a material reinterpretation of the image. Three readings of the same work — the original, its closest transposition, and a creative transposition into another procédé.
Oil-based ink brushed onto a gelatin matrix. Pictorialism par excellence — a painterly surface assumed.
MP procédé — reformulated non-toxic chemistry, signed by Tristan Sidem.
View the procédéHistory of the process
Le bromoil naît à Londres en 1907 sous l'impulsion de C. Welborne Piper, qui formalise un procédé permettant de transformer une épreuve gélatino-argentique en matrice encrable à la main. E.J. Wall consolide la technique dans son ouvrage de référence The Bromoil Process, faisant de ce procédé l'un des étendards techniques du mouvement pictorialiste anglo-saxon.
Les pictorialistes français adoptent immédiatement le bromoil pour sa proximité avec la peinture à l'huile. Robert Demachy, figure tutélaire du pictorialisme français, en réalise plusieurs séries aujourd'hui conservées au Musée d'Orsay. La Royal Photographic Society Collection de Londres détient les épreuves majeures de l'école anglaise, témoignages du dialogue continu entre photographie et arts graphiques au tournant du XXe siècle.
Our approach
Chaque tirage bromoil réalisé à l'atelier du 1 Passage Dagorno est une pièce unique, encrée à la main par nos artisans tireurs. Le procédé restant éditable plusieurs heures durant le travail au rouleau, deux épreuves issues du même négatif ne se ressemblent jamais : la gestuelle, la pression et la distribution de l'encre Charbonnel signent chaque exemplaire de façon irréductible.
Nous travaillons exclusivement sur papier aquarelle satiné 100 % coton 640 g/m², choisi pour sa capacité à supporter le gonflement de la gélatine sans déformation, ainsi que pour la profondeur veloutée qu'il confère au noir d'encre taille-douce. Ce papier de conservation assure une stabilité plurisééculaire à l'œuvre encrée.
Inside our studio
1 Passage Dagorno, Paris 20e. Each print is hand-crafted by Tristan Sidem and Raphaël Lebas de Lacour, using Vision Picturale's reformulated non-toxic chemistry. Limited edition, signed and numbered.
Commission this print
- Hand-printed and signed by Tristan Sidem & Raphaël Lebas de Lacour
- Reformulated non-toxic chemistry (Vision Picturale recipes)
- Limited edition, numbered, certificate of authenticity
- 1 Passage Dagorno studio, Paris 20e
- Delivery 3 to 5 weeks · ships worldwide from France
Available formats
- 30 × 40 cmFrom 280€
- 40 × 50 cmFrom 420€
- 50 × 70 cmFrom 680€
- 70 × 100 cmFrom 1180€
- Custom sizeFrom 1850€
Indicative pricing — the exact rate depends on the chosen procédé, support and finish.
Contemporary print after a work in the public domain (CPI L.123-1, 70 years post-mortem). Hand-crafted reinterpretation by Maison Picturale's master printers — this is not an original vintage by the master. The mention 'after [Master]' is systematic on the print and on the certificate of authenticity.
