A Jugendstil Masterpiece: Sehnsucht by Gotz Dohler

In the early years of the twentieth century, many German artists were busy constructing the vocabulary of Expressionism. But some remained faithful to the Symbolist/Art Nouveau aesthetic of the end of the previous century, known as Jugendstil. I think the etching in this post, published in 1906 by the Leipzig art revue Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst, is one of the masterpieces of late Jugendstil. It's one of the most perfect summations of Jugendstil I have seen - intricate, brooding, romantic, with a magical transformation between human and natural forms. Please click on the image to get a larger version with more detail.

C. Götz Döhler, Sehnsucht (Longing)

Etching with aquatint, 1906

What is perhaps most surprising about this work is that the artist who created it, Götz Dohler, remains almost completely unknown. I have managed to discover a first initial, C., and a year of birth, 1867, and that's it. He's not listed in Bénézit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs. Google comes up with almost nothing. I can't find any record of work by Döhler being sold or offered for sale. Via Libri doesn't come up with any books or journals illustrated by him. It's as if he just created this one perfect work and then vanished into thin air. And yet no one acquires the technical skill shown in Sehnsucht without a lot of practice. I can imagine that if Götz Döhler remained doggedly faithful to Judgendstil he would have faded from view as that style became outmoded, and equally that his lush romantic sensibility would have been out-of-tune with the times once the catastrophe of the First World War go under way. But it still seems mysterious that so little can be ascertained about an artist of such stature. Do any of my readers know anything more about him?

Update 15 September 2013:
I correct myself: C. Götz Döhler is listed in Bénézit, with the variant spelling Doehler. He was born in Glachau on the 31st of March 1867. He studied in Leipzig, and seems to have lived and worked there. Although he is described as a painter and printmaker, his main work seems to have been designing and executing large decorative paintings.

Bittersweet beauty: an etching by Eduard Einschlag

The elegant turn-of-the-century lady, dressed in the height of fashion, has a sad story to tell. Although this is just speculation on my part, I believe the model is Louise Victoria Einschlag, the wife of the artist Eduard David Einschlag, whose signature is etched in the plate top right, along with the date '03. The etching was published the following year by the Leipzig art revue Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst.

Eduard David Einschlag, Damenbildnis

Etching with aquatint, 1903

Eduard David Einschlag was born in Leipzig in 1879, into a Jewish family. He studied at the fine art Academies of Leipzig, Munich (where he learned etching from Peter Halm), and Berlin, returning to Leipzig to live and work in 1910. Eduard Einschlag is known for his paintings and for his masterly etchings in a post-Impressionist style. In 1938 Eduard and Louise Victoria Einschlag were deported by the Nazis, and both were murdered at the Treblinka extermination camp, sometime around 1942.