Heinrich Zille

Heinrich Zille Registry Office 1909 Ink pen drawing and watercolour on ivory half cardboard, the motif outlined in ink pen like a frame 16,1 x 25,9 cm / 16,7 x 27,2 cm Framed under glass. Lower right signed and dated in ink 'H. Zille. 09.'. Stamped 'Sporthumor' at each side margin, pencilled, numbered '209' in ink at right. - With tack holes in the corners, the cardboard minimally browned. Provenance Villa Grisebach, Heinrich Zille and the critical Berlin, Berlin, 7 June 2002, lot 1561; Private collection Germany Heinrich Zille, who always takes aim at his Berlin contemporaries with a warm sense of humour, cannot resist a certain touch of sarcasm in this scene. Scene at the registry office: on the left the bride's festively dressed family, visibly content in unison and about to conclude a good business deal. The bride on the right, dressed in white and heavily pregnant, covering her belly with a large bouquet of roses, is hooked up to her future husband, who - aged, portly and well-heeled - also seems to rejoice in his young happiness. At the same time the event is commented with the corresponding notices "Needy Mothers", "Mothers", and "Maternity Protection" and interprets the forthcoming wedding as protective measure and charitable rescue of the young bride whose war cunning seems to flash from her eyes. Possibly the work was intended for the humorous magazine in the wake of Simplicissimus, the "Sporthumor", which was very popular at the time.