[alma mahler doll made for oskar kokoschka by hermine moos]

Made between July to March by German painter and dollmaker Hermine Moos, the doll was commissioned by expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka. He gave instructions for what materials she should use, and even where she might find them.

[alma mahler doll made for oskar kokoschka by hermine moos]: Replete with a swanskin exterior and

Oskar Kokoschka met Alma Mahler in , and asked her to marry him within 24 hours of meeting her. She refused his offer, but they undertook a passionate affair. She was his muse. Soon after, Kokoschka enlisted for the Austrian Cavalry, and by , he had been hospitalized multiple times for a major brain injury and other battle injuries sustained on the Hungarian front.

In , Kokoschka returned to Germany traumatized from the war and likely feeling scorned to find his ex-lover, Alma, married to another man, Walter Gropius. It was then that he commissioned Hermine Moos to make the infamous doll. Kokoschka was ultimately disappointed with Miss Moos and the doll she created. It is unclear why Hermine decided to use goose feathers, as none of her letters in response to Kokoschka have survived.

Scholars do know that her work tended to be more fantastical, and that it could have been a deliberate artistic choice she made, which would have fit in better with her work than a more realistic doll.