by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on October 17, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Looking at The Mandrill
A mandrill appears within sweeping blue, yellow, green and red forms in Franz Marc's The Mandrill (Der Mandrill). The Bavarian State Painting Collections date it to 1913 and record it as an oil painting on canvas, 91 × 131 cm, inventory 13467. The animal's face is near the centre, but it takes a moment to find: curved colour bands and angular forms push across the whole surface. [1]
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Watch on YouTubeFinding the animal
Look for the dark, narrow eyes below a blue arch. A long muzzle and hanging arms then emerge from the surrounding colours. Marc did not isolate the mandrill against a plain background. Instead, the animal's body shares its contours with the landscape-like shapes around it. This gives the image a sense of energy even though the figure is seated. Strong contrasts of warm orange and red with cooler blue and green carry the viewer's eye through the composition. [1]
The museum's record identifies a striking history for the painting. Maria Marc inherited it after the artist's death. The Kunsthalle Hamburg acquired it in 1918, but the Nazi regime confiscated it in 1937 in its campaign against modern art. Sofie and Emanuel Fohn acquired it in 1939 through an exchange with the regime; they gave it to the Bavarian State Painting Collections in 1964. These dates concern the painting's ownership, rather than a story depicted within it. [1]
Franz Marc, The Mandrill. The animal emerges from curved blue, yellow, red and green forms.
Compare the mandrill's partly hidden face with the more immediately readable monkey in The Little Monkey. Both subjects are primates, but the 1913 painting asks us to assemble the figure from its surrounding colour. [1] [2]
Artwork Directory
This source-checked selection contains 192 identified works and print designs from the current Franz Marc research set. It is a curated selection, not a complete catalogue raisonné. Some works link to their article here; others link to a collection record. Unresolved identifications are omitted.
Discussion
The animal is present, but colour and angled forms make it hard to locate at once.
Reader Insights
Observation
Which facial feature first reveals the mandrill to you?
Comparison
How does this compressed image differ from the clearly outlined Tiger?
Interpretation
At what point does the animal become a pattern of independent colours?
Join the Conversation
Which detail changed the way you saw this work? Share a close observation or a comparison with another Marc picture.
References
- Bavarian State Painting Collections object record. View source.
- Lenbachhaus, The Little Monkey. View source.
- Related artwork image, Yellow Cow: Photograph by Dr. Alexey Yakovlev; resized without crop or colour change, CC BY-SA 2.0.
- Splash image: Franz Marc, The Mandrill, 1913, oil on canvas. Bavarian State Painting Collections, 13467. Image © Bavarian State Painting Collections, CC BY-SA 4.0; resized to 1024 px without crop or colour change; derivative shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Object record.
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