Portrait of Doctor Wilhelm Puhlmann
  • Adolph von Menzel
  • Breslau 1815 - 1905 Berlin
  • Portrait of Doctor Wilhelm Puhlmann
  • Black chalk, partly smeared
    on brown paper, with irregular borders
  • signed and dated on the upper right: Menzel 59
  • 315 × 187 mm

Dr. Wilhelm Puhlmann (Potsdam 1797-1882) was one of Adolph Menzel’s closest confidants. The artistically inclined regimental doctor of the hussar guards commissioned Menzel in 1836 to design a membership sheet for the recently founded Potsdam Art Union. Out of this first contact a warm, life-long friendship soon developed, preserved in numerous gifts of drawings (Fig. 1) and exchanges of letters. In 1882, the Nationalgalerie in Berlin was able to acquire Puhlmann’s voluminous collection of Menzel’s works.