Description:

signed: F. STUCK
black chalk and charcoal on card
428 x 284 mm

Provenance:

Private collection, Berlin

Note:

The periodical PAN, published in Berlin between 1895 and 1900, is regarded as one of the most important voices of Art Nouveau in Germany. Franz von Stuck’s iconic cover, a horned and bearded head of the god Pan, adorned each of the journal’s 21 issues with a different coloured background for each edition. The present drawing is a design for the cover of the PAN prospectus issue, published in August in 1894 to raise awareness for the forthcoming periodical and build a subscriber base prior to the publication of the first issue. Here, the characteristic pan’s head with horns and beard is smaller in scale and more compact in form than the design ultimately used throughout the periodical’s existence.

Stuck was a member of the ‘Genossenschaft Pan’, the literary and artistic co-operative which was responsible for the publication of the magazine, and whose members included Félix Vallotton, Ludwig von Hofmann, and Max Liebermann. He also created various designs for the magazine and for its promotional materials. Margot Th. Brandlhuber, Curator at the Museum Villa Stuck, has suggested that the present work may also have functioned as a letterhead for the co-operative’s early promotional material.

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