An Edvard Munch sales inventory from 1906. The condition of the paintings related to Rolf Stenersen's assertion about the "Kill-or-Cure" remedy

• Main Author: Stein, Mille
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1421-1434

The Munch biographer Rolf Stenersen asserted that Edvard Munch used the weather to modify his paintings’ appearance - an artistic technique Stenersen called the horse-cure. Was Stenersen right, or did he create a myth which later became important for how Munch paintings are preserved and disseminated? To investigate Stenersen´s assertion, and as a part of a larger study of this topic, 65 paintings that Munch intended to sell in 1906-07 were examined. The purpose was to find out if any of them had been weathered. The sources for this study were the inventory and photos that Commeter´sche Kunsthandlung in Hamburg made for the paintings it had in commission for Munch in 1906, and the correspondence between Commeter´sche and Munch. Several of the paintings were in poor condition. They had common damages, such as tears, and uncommon anomalies, such as bird droppings, ambiguous spots, premature paint losses, and tidelines. It is argued for that these damages and anomalies are due to improper and careless transport, handling, and storage, and not a result of an intended modification of the paintings appearance by weathering. The conclusion is that the paintings Munch intended to sell in 1906 – 07 had not been weathered, and that Stenersen´s assertation about a horse-cure should not be emphasized.