Ort (Place) from Ein Handschuh (A Glove). Cyclus von zehn Compositionen radirt. Rad. Opus VI, Plate I. First edition

Art Historical Context

Max Klinger’s *Ort (Place)* opens his celebrated 1881 cycle *Ein Handschuh (A Glove)*, a groundbreaking series of ten etchings that follows the mysterious journey of a single woman’s glove. Created when the artist was only twenty-three, the print introduces viewers to the quiet park bench where the glove is discovered, setting the stage for the psychological drama that unfolds across the cycle. Working in a Symbolist vein, Klinger transforms an everyday object into a potent emblem of desire, loss, and fantasy. The plate demonstrates Klinger’s technical brilliance. Combining etching, drypoint, and aquatint on chine collé, he achieves velvety blacks, delicate textures, and luminous highlights that give the scene both realism and an unsettling dreamlike quality. The first-edition impression now at the Metropolitan Museum preserves the crisp contrasts and subtle tonal gradations that made the series an immediate sensation in late-nineteenth-century printmaking circles. Widely regarded as a precursor to Surrealism, *Ein Handschuh* helped redefine the graphic arts as a vehicle for exploring the unconscious. *Ort* thus stands not merely as an introductory scene, but as the quiet threshold to one of the most influential print cycles of its era.

About the Artist

F. Felsing|Max Klinger (German|German) · |1857 – |1920

|German, Leipzig 1857–1920 Großjena