Anders Zorn, "Marie Cohn".

"Marie Cohn"

Signed Zorn and dated 1900. Oil on canvas 66 x 52 cm.

Provenance

The Cohn family.
Chief Engineer Tore Husberg (1877-1953), Malmö/Arboga, acquired at Bukowski Konsthandel in Stockholm in 1938.
Thence by descent.

Exhibitions

Berlin, "Kunstausstellung der Berliner Secession", May-October 1901, cat. no. 299 "Kinderporträt".
Arboga, Konstföreningen, November 1943.
Blaafarvevaerket, Modum, Norway, "Anders Zorn 1860-1920", 12 May - 30 September 1990, cat. no. 85.
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm, "Anders Zorn", 15 September - 11 December 1994, cat. no. 80.
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, "Anders Zorn", 26 December 1994 - 26 March 1995, cat. no. 80.
Bröhan Museum, Berlin, "Schönheit für alle - Jugendstil in Schweden", 30 September 2005 - 29 January 2006.
Zornmuseet, Mora, "Zorns Mästerverk, Zorn 150 år", 13 May - 14 September 2010.
Blaafarvevaerket, Modum, Norway, "Malerkongene: Anders Zorn och Odd Nerdrum", 21 May - 25 September 2011, cat. no. 23.
Fine Arts Museum of San Fransisco, "Anders Zorn: Sweden's Master Painter", 9 November 2013-2 February 2014.
National Academy Museum, New York, "Anders Zorn: Sweden's Master Painter", 27 February - 18 May 2014.
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, "Anders Zorn - Sweden's superstar", 26 September 2025 - 25 January 2026, cat. no. 74.
Fundación Mapfre, Madrid, "Anders Zorn, Traveling the work, remembering the land", 19 February - 17 May 2026, cat. no. 74.

Literature

Friederich Pecht (ed.), "Die Kunst für Alle; Malerei, Plastik, Graphik, Architektur", 16, 1900-1901, illustrated p. 470.
Tor Hedberg, "Anders Zorn - 1894-1920", 1924, p. 52, illustrated p. 51.
Christian Faerber (ed.), Konst i svenska hem I: målningar och skulpturer från 1800 till våra dagar, 1942, included in the collection of Chief Engineer Tore Husberg, no. 278, p. 196.
Gerda Boëthius, "ZORN. Tecknaren. Målaren. Etsaren. Skulptören", 1949, p. 399, as well as included in the catalogue section under the year 1900.
Gerda Boëtius, "Anders Zorn, An international Swedish artist - His life and work", 1954, p. 55.
Gerda Boëtius, "Zorn - Människan och konstnären", 1960, p. 167.
Anders Zorn/Hans Henrik Brummer, "Självbiografiska anteckningar - utgivna och kommenterade av Hans Henrik Brummer", 1982, p. 112 and 215.
Kjell Rasmus Steinsvik (ed.), "Anders Zorn", The Modum Blaafarvevaerk Foundation, 1990, illustrated on the cover and p. 128.
Hans Henrik Brummer, "Till ögats fröjd och nationens förgyllning - Anders Zorn", 1994, included in the catalogue no. 80.
Cecilia Lengefeld, "Zorn - Resor, konst och kommers i Tyskland", 2000, p. 163, 241, illustrated colour plate XV.
Birgitta Sandström, "Zorn - självbiografiska anteckningar", 2004, p. 171, illustrated p. 172.
Johan Cederlund, "Zorns Mästerverk", 2010, p. 138, illustrated p. 139.
Tone Sinding Steinsvik (et al.), "Malerkongene: Anders Zorn och Odd Nerdrum", The Modum Blaafarvevaerk Foundation, 2011, illustrated p. 25.
Johan Cederlund (et al.), "Anders Zorn - Sweden's Master Painter", 2013, illustrated plate 71.
Markus Bertsch & Casilda Ybarra Satrústegui (eds.), "Anders Zorn", 2025, illustrated p. 176.

More information

At the turn of the century in 1900, Anders Zorn was at the height of his international career. After his breakthrough years in Paris and extensive travels in Europe and the USA, he had established himself as one of the most sought-after portrait painters of his time, appreciated for his ability to capture his model with technical brilliance and psychological insight.

The painting “Marie Cohn,” executed in Berlin in the autumn of 1900, belongs to this cosmopolitan phase of his artistry – a period when Zorn moved effortlessly between Europe’s cultural metropolises, portraying an international bourgeoisie marked by self-assured modernity and social ambition. For nearly 100 years, the painting has been referred to as “Fröken Cohen” or “Fraulein Cohen,” and the identity of the young teenage girl had fallen into obscurity. However, in the early 2000s, her four children recognised their mother’s portrait in a reproduction of the painting and were able to identify her. Their mother was named Marie Cohn (1887-1967) as a girl, and she was the daughter of the owner of a private bank in Berlin. She later studied history, earned her doctorate in Heidelberg in 1913, and married the Member of Parliament Dr. August Weber the following year.

The thirteen-year-old Marie Cohn emerges in the painting with a striking presence and intelligent gaze. Zorn avoids any form of overloaded attributes and instead allows the model’s posture, gaze, and body language to convey the portrait’s expression. The restrained elegance of the portrayal – where the attire, light, and background interact without dominating – is typical of the artist’s portraiture. Zorn’s strength lay in his ability to unite representation and intimacy. The commissioned portrait transforms in his hands into a study of the individual’s character, as is the case in “Marie Cohn.” Tor Hedberg states that “the portrait of Miss Cohen, executed in 1900 during a stopover in Berlin, is evidently to be counted among his best child portraits.”

When the painting was executed in Berlin, the city was a centre for finance, industry, and culture, and a meeting place for a growing Jewish and international bourgeoisie – the circle where many of Zorn’s patrons were found, as well as his art dealer Paul Cassirer. Here, his Nordic sensibility encountered an urban and cosmopolitan environment, contributing to a refinement of his portrait style. Zorn’s international success rested significantly on his social skills and his ability to navigate these environments. His clientele included both aristocracy and financial elites, as well as political power holders, and his portraits came to serve as visual markers for a global elite at the turn of the century.

In "Marie Cohn," Zorn displays his technical virtuosity in oil painting. His famous, limited palette – often reduced to just a few colours – allows for a richness in tone and hue that gives the skin its liveliness and the materiality its credibility. Her white dress and the white curtain contrast with the dark hair that he crowns with a vividly coloured red bow in characteristically Zornian fashion. He plays with the light-dark effect, bringing out her facial features with the help of side light.

The brushwork is both precise and expressive. Up close, the painting appears as a play of free, confident brushstrokes; from a distance, these coalesce into an illusion of immediate presence. The light models the face with an almost photographic precision while preserving a painterly vitality.

Zorn occupies a unique position: his art is neither fully academic nor modernist, but characterised by a pragmatic virtuosity where craftsmanship and immediate visual effect are central. It is this synthesis that made him one of the most successful portraitists of his time. The work unites technical brilliance with psychological insight and bears witness to the artist’s ability to combine social representation and individual presence in a single image. With a solid exhibition history that dates back to 1901 when it was shown in Berlin, and as recently as this spring in Madrid, Zorn’s delightful “Marie Cohn” showcases our Swedish virtuoso painter as he brilliantly captured her in the autumn of 1900 on his canvas.

More about Anders Zorn

Anders Zorn, born in Mora in 1860, showed artistic talent from a young age. In 1875, he traveled to Stockholm and became a student at the then Slöjdskolan (now Tekniska högskolan) in Stockholm, and shortly after, he joined the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Initially, Zorn had aspirations of becoming a sculptor, but soon watercolor painting took over, becoming his primary medium until 1887. At the student exhibition in 1880, Zorn had his breakthrough with the watercolor painting "I sorg." The following year, he gained international acclaim as a portrait painter. His watercolor painting reached its pinnacle during this period, and his most famous work from this time is "Vårt dagliga bröd” from 1886. Shortly thereafter, Zorn transitioned to oil painting, which was met with immediate success. Zorn's reputation mainly rested on his portrait art, and he portrayed many notable figures, including presidents. For instance, he created an etching of Theodore Roosevelt. His etchings significantly contributed to his success. In the late 1880s, Zorn began working in the genre that would increasingly become his trademark: nude figures in outdoor settings. He had long been fascinated by the movement of water and the reflections of light on its surface. Now, he added the complexity of placing a model near or in the water, aiming to depict a synthesis between nature and humanity. In 1896, Zorn and his wife moved back to Sweden and settled in Zorngården in Mora. This move sparked a renewed interest in his homeland, which would be reflected in his future paintings. Among the artist's scenes from the Mora region, portraying its local customs and ancient traditions, "Midsommardansen" holds the highest value according to Zorn himself. Today, the painting can be found at the National Museum.

For condition report contact specialist