Clara Rilke-Westhoff (1878 Bremen - 1954 Fischerhude) Portrait head of Rainer Maria Rilke Bronze, dark brown patina, 1905, later wooden base. Wvz. Sauer 44. lifetime casting (before 1939); Sauer names six original bronze casts. Bronzes by Clara Rilke-Westhoff are among the rarest in public and private collections and on the art market. The portrait of the reading Rilke with a strongly inclined head on a low, stepped pedestal, composed entirely around the striking profile, was created in 1905, after Clara and the unsteady poet had already largely separated. It reflects Rilke's personality and her own personal, contradictory relationship with him, as well as the influence of Auguste Rodin in his lively modelling. Although Clara Rilke-Westhoff was one of the first important German sculptors of modernism, she remained in the shadow of two personalities throughout her life - Rilke and Paula Modersohn-Becker (with whom she was close friends). The creation of the bronze sculpture is well documented: In August 1905, at the invitation of Countess Luise von Schwerin, she stayed for 14 days at Schloss Friedelhausen, where Rilke was already staying. There she modelled him in his characteristic reading pose, and when she returned to Worpswede she tried out different head inclinations and plinth solutions. The present, final version on a low stepped plinth is undoubtedly the most convincing version and Clara Rilke-Westhoff herself also considered it to be the most successful, so that several bronze copies were only cast from this version. Rodin, to whom she sent photographs of it in autumn 1905, congratulated her on this "There are not many sculptors who can do this" and invited her to Meudon near Paris. As a result, she was able to work in one of Rodin's studios for four weeks in 1905. H. 17.8 cm, W. approx. 15.5 cm. D. approx. 9.5 cm. See: Marina Sauer: "Die Bildhauerin Clara-Rilke-Westhoff 1878-1954. Leben und Werk (mit Oeuvre-Katalog)", Bremen 1986, no. 44, pp. 129-131, 352-355. Only very few other original casts can be traced: one copy is in the Paula-Modersohn-Becker-Stiftung, Bremen (acquired in 2001 by Johanna Beyer née Sieber-Rilke), another is in the possession of the Rilke family or in the Rilke Archive in Gernsbach. We would like to thank Mr Wolfgang Werner, Bremen, for kind information on the bronze. Provenance: From the estate of the Rilke researcher and publisher Ernst Zinn (1910 - 1990), most likely acquired directly from Clara Rilke-Westhoff; 1939 gift from Zinn to the art historian Dr Wolfgang Schöne (1910 - 1989) and his wife Dr Antje Schöne (born 1907, daughter of Hans Jantzen); subsequently in the possession of the family by succession. Dark brown patinated bronze, 1905. Lifetime cast (prior 1939) from a small edition of six. Later wooden base.