Four studies for Die Schöne Melusine; and A self-portrait painting the Melusine cycle in a rotunda

These studies for Die Schöne Melusine were made in preparation for Schwind's circular cycle, dated 1867-8, recorded in seven large watercolours in the Graphische Sammlung of the Österreichische Galerie, Vienna, Siegmar Holsten et al., Moritz von Schwind, Meister der Spätromantik, exhib. cat., Karlsruhe, Staatlichen Kunsthalle, and elsewhere, 1996-7, no. 454. Schwind evolved his designs for the cycle in a sketchbook of 1864-68 in the Albertina, Vienna, in which he simultaneously develops his ideas both for Melusine and for his famous frescoes illustrating Die Zauberflöte for the loggia of the Opera House in Vienna, S. Holsten, op. cit., no. 403.
The Melusine cycle may have been intended for the inner frieze of a rotunda built on the shore of the Starnberger See, outside Munich, which is the subject of Schwind's Self-portrait painting the Melusine cycle in a rotunda, part of the present lot. A more finished version of this composition, dated 1869, was formerly in the collection of Max Schreiber, Esslingen, O. Weigmann, Schwind, Des Meisters Werke, Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1906, p. XLIII, illustrated.