Carved in relief.

Good.

…; Mrs Pauline A. Stad-Kahn, Amsterdam/Owing Mills, Md. (USA), before 1939;¹¹Note RMA. Mrs Stad-Kahn moved to the United States in 1939. by whom donated to the museum, 1975

Object number: BK-1975-76

Credit line: Gift of P.A. Stad-Kahn, Owing Mills

Johannes (‘Hans’) Reicher (1895-1963) studied at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Berlin. In the period between the two world wars, he moved to the Netherlands, where he settled as an artist in exile initially in The Hague and, from 1937 on, in Amsterdam, where he taught at the Hendrick de Keyserschool and cohabited for some time with Hubert van Lith. On 16 March 1940, just prior to the German invasion of the Netherlands, he became a member of the Nederlandse Kring van Beeldhouwers, federatie Amsterdam (Netherlands Society of Sculptors, Amsterdam chapter).²²Y. Koopmans, Muurvast & Gebeiteld: Beeldhouwkunst in de bouw 1840-1940, Rotterdam 1997, p. 253. During these years, Reicher came to be influenced by the classicism emanating from France – that of Maillol, Despiau and others – as propagated in the Netherlands primarily by Wezelaar and Sondaar. Reicher was invited to attend Wezelaar’s sixtieth birthday celebration, with the two men likely on friendly terms.³³J. Teeuwisse, Han Wezelaar statuaire, Zwolle 2003, pp. 94, 169. Compared to the latter’s works from the pre-war years, Reicher’s visual idiom is more classical and less ‘doll-like naïve’.⁴⁴Cf. J. Teeuwisse, Han Wezelaar statuaire, Zwolle 2003, nos. 16, 24, 25, 36, 42. Characteristic of his classicism during this period is a recumbent female nude in terracotta from 1939.⁵⁵Th. van Rijn, Nederlandse beeldhouwers van deze tijd, Amsterdam/Brussels 1949, p. 132.

With its traditional theme, closed composition, restrained contouring and the emphasis on the profile, the present relief perfectly exemplifies these classical tendencies. Kneeling on her right leg, this virtually naked woman (excepting a hairband) is shown partly in profile, partly frontal: her torso turns in the direction of the beholder, while her legs and face remain in strict profile; only at the right foot has this turning been less successfully achieved. A lengthy cloth drapes across the back of the woman’s body, starting at one end clasped in her raised right hand, disappearing over the right should end emerging again in the left hand at the level of her left knee. As such, the drapery, which at first appears to be lie in the same two-dimensional plane, in fact serves to create a movement that extends beyond the relief’s visual plane. In this manner, Reicher takes an ostensibly two-dimensional surface, enclosed by the block that frames it, and manages to create a composition with a subtle effect of depth. A compositional parallel can be discerned in Wezelaar’s depiction of a recumbent woman in high relief from 1931.⁶⁶J. Teeuwisse, Han Wezelaar statuaire, Zwolle 2003, no. 42. Reicher’s direct inspiration, however, must still be sought in the work of the French sculptor Maillol, whose bold elementary nudes – die Grosse Form⁷⁷A. Kuhn, Die neuere Plastik von 1800 bis zur Gegenwart, Munich 1922, pp. 89ff. – greatly inspired many German sculptors in the period between the two world wars, in part thanks to the efforts of Count Henry Kessler. Reicher appears to been particularly inspired by Maillol’s graphic work – even more so than his sculpture. These include the latter’s illustrations for Emile Verhaeren’s poetry book entitled Belle Chair (1931) and Ovid’s L’Art d’Aimer (1935).⁸⁸J. Rewald, Maillol, Paris 1939, p. 7, 17, 23, 27 ; and also pp. 50-53 (Méditerranée), 55, 112 (Baigneuse accroupie), 113 (Monument for Debussy), 120 (La Montagne). The relief dates from the second half of the 1930s: presumably after Reicher’s move to Amsterdam in 1937 but certainly prior to 1939, the year in which the donor emigrated to the United States, with the relief then likely already in her possession.

In Amsterdam, Reicher’s sculptures are found today in a number of outdoor public spaces. Examples include a limestone sculpture of Kneeling Man (1 Meschaertstraat), a bronze nude of a woman freeing a dove entitled Peace (Radioweg/Van der Waalsstraat in the Watergraafsmeer neighbourhood, 1962), and a bronze Torchbearer (15 Dintelstraat). A war monument in the form of a kneeling woman (limestone) from 1948 still stands today in the village of Bad Nieuweschans (Groningen).⁹⁹Two other works by Reicher in outdoor public spaces can be found in G. Lampe and H. Hahndieck, Beeldhouwers in beeld, Utrecht 1961, pp. 64 (nude with flower stem, standing on a fish, bronze) and 71 (standing nude, bronze).

Frits Scholten, 2026

Unpublished

F. Scholten, 2026, 'Hans Reicher, Kneeling Woman, Amsterdam, before 1939', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20036366