Gabriel von Max
Lied ohne Werte [Song without Worth or Worthless Song] (Kleiner Affe am Klavier; Small Monkey at Piano),
also known as Lied ohne Worte [Song without Words]
circa 1900-1915
oil on wood panel
31,2 x 23,3 cm (12 1/4 x 9 3/16 in.) (image)
41,3 x 33,4 (frame)
signed lower right: G v Max
inscribed upper left: Lied ohne Werte
Conserved by Andrea Rothe (formerly, Senior Painting Conservator, Getty Museum) and Jeanne McKee-Rothe (formerly, Conservator, Norton Simon Museum).
Exhibition History:
"Gabriel von Max, Malerstar, Darwinist, Spiritist," Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, Munich, October 23, 2010 - January 30, 2011
"Gabriel von Max: Be-tailed Cousins and Phantasms of the Soul," Frye Art Museum, Seattle, July 9-Oct. 30, 2011
"The Apes & Us: A Century of Representations of Our Closest Relatives," Stanford University, California, Hohbach Hall, Green Library, January 9, 2024 - June 21, 2024
Publication History:
Karin Althaus and Helmut Friedel, eds., Gabriel von Max, Malerstar, Darwinist, Spiritist (München: Hirmer Verlag, 2010), pg. 327, ill. 333.
Aleš Filip and Roman Musil, eds., Gabriel von Max (1840-1915) (Prague: Arbor vitae, 2011), ill. 275, pg. 207.
Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, ed., Gabriel von Max (Seattle: Frye Art Museum, 2011), ill. 61, pg. 79.
Angela Schürzinger, Gabriel von Max' Affenbilder. Zum Einfluss der durch Charles Darwin und Ernst Haeckel vermittelten Evolutionstheorie, M.A. thesis, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, 2012, discussed at pgs. 66-67, ill. no. 24 at pg. 108.
Aleš Filip, “MAXŮV CYKLUS OBRAZOVÝCH FANTAZIÍ K HUDEBNÍM
SKLADBÁM” [“Max’s Cycle of Pictorial Fantasies for Musical Compositions”], Musicologica Brunensia 2013 (Brno:
Masaryk University, 2014), Vol. 48,
issue 2, pgs. 39-58, illustrated at Pl. 8, pg. 55.
Gabriela Świtek, Małpiarnia malarza. Darwinizm w twórczości Gabriela von Maxa, „Wiek XIX. Rocznik Towarzy stwa Literackigo im. Adama Mickiewicza”, R./Jg. 7 (49): 2014, s./S. 311–321, at pg. 315 (referenced without illustration).
Patrick Tort, Darwin, Exposé et Expliqué (Vincennes: Frémeaux & Associés, 2016), audiobook, cover ill.
Karin Althaus, Gabriel von Max, Von ekstatischen Frauen und Affen im Salon, Gemälde zwischen Wahn und Wissenschaft (München: Schirmer/Mosel, 2018), ill. 33, pg. 89.
2038, The New Serenity, a video featuring Lied ohne Werte that was screened as part of the “Disappearing Berlin” series at the Schinkel Pavilion, Berlin (Christopher Roth, filmmaker), February 2020. See The New Serenity video on YouTube. Team 2038 is an interdisciplinary creative group representing Germany in the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale 2020. See Elena Ferrari, "2038, The New Serenity: Germany at The Venice Architecture Biennale 2020," Domus magazine, February 19, 2020.
Jessica Riskin and Caroline Winterer, The Apes & Us: A Century of Representations of Our Closest Relatives (Stanford, California: Silicon Valley Archives/Stanford University Libraries, 2024), ill. at pg. 6.
Discussion:
An interesting comparison can be made between this painting and another painting in The Daulton Collection, "Saint Cecilia" (1879), a similar composition more than 20 years earlier with a female saint as its subject.
In addition, the title of this painting, Song Without Worth [Lied ohne Werte], is an ironic reference to Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's piano composition Song without Words [Lied ohne Worte], a subject Gabriel von Max illustrated much earlier in his career; The Daulton Collection owns one of those illustrations from 1862 (see above on this website).
It appears that Gabriel von Max based this painting, at least in part, on a photograph of a macaque money, circa 1870. See photograph, below.
