Charcoal Portrait Study of a Young Lady c.1902

The beautifully executed portrait of a young lady, shown in profile, depicted in charcoal with white highlights and mounted on cardboard, signed and dated "Wallat 1902" lower right and in its original gilded reeded frame, survives from the primary years of the twentieth century.

The drawing is in good overall order with the paper darkened, and the frame with traces of age. There are a couple of surface marks as photographed. It would probably benefit from being glazed. There is a paper sticker verso reading ‘Evald Jochimson Glarmester Sonderburg’ who was a period framer and colourman.

Paul Wallat (June 1, 1879 – November 24, 1966) was a German landscape artist, draftsman and sculptor. He was the son of the shoemaker Gustav Wallat and brother of the sculptor Gustav Wallat [de]. He graduated from a painter's apprenticeship in Rostock and from 1899 to 1902 studied painting at the School of Applied Arts Hamburg. Between 1902 (when this was drawn) and 1909 he attended the Preussische Akademie der Künste in Berlin at the history painter Otto Brausewetter [de] (1835-1904) and the marine- and landscapepainter Carl Saltzmann.

In 1905 and 1906 Paul Wallat undertook a world tour on the MS "Charlotte" ("by the grace of the Wilhelm II, German Emperor"), later he was often in Holland and Belgium. On December 29, 1906 he received the award of the Ginsberg Foundation of the Berlin Academy. By 1917, he had his residence in Berlin, and in 1918 he came to Gehlsdorf, a small village near Rostock. After 1949 he resided Sønderborg in Denmark.

One gets the impression that the sitter resided in the heart of the artist, such as the artful way she is so wonderfully rendered.