The Passion of Collecting Academic Nudes

Join me as we explore my collection of Academic Nudes from the 18th, 19th, and Early 20th Centuries and serendipitous finds in the Museum, Art Auction, and Gallery world......examples from the Golden Age of the European Academie


Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Monogrammist "L.C" ......19th Century French Sanguine Drawings From The Antique - Dated 1802

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A seller on eBay France listed this nice series of sanguine drawings from the antique this morning. They are not large drawings, slightly larger than a legal sized piece of paper, but the seller has listed them for prices that I honestly believe will never find a buyer. They are monogrammed "L.C." and dated 1802. For the life of me I cannot figure out why a seller would be asking over three hundred and fifty euros each for these drawings. Value depends upon many things, subject matter (nude boys bring the most, followed by male nudes, and at the low end are female nudes; if you own a pre-adolescent female nude of good quality, you can name your own price, they are just that rare), medium, condition, age, and an identifiable, listed artist. These drawings are nicely executed but certainly not worth the equivalent of four hundred fifty dollars each. At that price, the seller will have them long enough to love them even more than he does now or he may be forced to lower those outrageous prices quite a bit. The market will find their value quite quickly and it is definitely not what he is asking. I suspect the seller has no experience in the market and simply pricing them according to the age and some dream in his or her head. I found two nice early male nudes recently on eBay France and made the seller a discounted offer on both. He came back saying he had twenty watchers and had been offered about twenty euros more than my offer. A few minutes ago I noticed they had not sold and he has re listed them at twenty euros less than my offer. Watchers are just that most of the time....... simply watching. A real serious buyer will have programmed an automatic bid on a bidding site like bidnapper and you won't see him before seven or eight seconds before the auction ends. That's called "lurking." You will never know he's there until you see his winning bid. Buying the work of art is his purpose, not driving the price up with an open bidding war. Dreams are funny things when they run up against market realities, they tend to burst like bubbles.
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Monday, February 20, 2012

Friedrich Kaspar Heising (1821-1902): Academic Male Nude Painting, dated 1841

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Addendum (March 8): I am happy to say that this beautiful 19th century academic male nude study will be on its way into my collection very soon. The seller and I have been negotiating the sale and export of the painting for many days now and have finally settled on a price and a way to get it to me. For a while there I thought it would slip through my fingers.


This beautiful academic nude turned up on a European auction site this morning. Friedrick Kasper (Casper) Leising (1821-1901) was a well known painter during the mid to late 19th century. Unfortunately I could not find much in the way of biographic information but this is a very nice example of 19th century academic art.

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Here is an exampkle of his mature works:




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Karl Jobst (1835-1907): Male Nude Drawing, Ca. 1900

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This beautiful male nude drawing by Austrian painter and watercolorist Karl Jobst (1835-1907) appeared on one of the eBay auction sites this morning. Jobst was a well known historical-genre painter in Vienna at the end of the 19th century. He and his brother, Franz Jobst (1840-1890), owned a well known and famous atelier specializing in architectural and commercial commissions. What caught my eye was that heroic pose, which reminds me of Sargent's male nudes.
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Here is just a small sampling of his works:
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