Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich is a 1929 portrait by György Rauscher of the actress Marlene Dietrich, held at the Komáromi Klapka György Múzeum. It is his most famous Berlin sitter.
The portrait is head-and-shoulders: the actress with her auburn hair loosely waved, the eyes heavily shadowed and the lips red, one hand raised to her cheek, a grey fur slipping from a bare shoulder. It is thinly and rapidly brushed in pale washes against a green ground, and it is signed at the lower left.
Rauscher painted her in Berlin in 1929, before the film The Blue Angel made her an international star; here she appears with auburn hair, not the platinum of her later Hollywood image (see /biography/berlin-years).
Among his Berlin sitters, Dietrich is the one whose name has stayed attached to his: a 2002 study by Salamon Nándor is titled “He was the portrait painter of Marlene Dietrich” (/bibliography#salamon-2002).
Record
- Archive ID: GR-0026
- Titles: Marlene Dietrich (the monograph’s title); Portrait of Marlene Dietrich (English)
- Year: 1929
- 1935 catalogue number: not identified in the printed catalogue (possibly one of the untitled female portraits)
- Medium: watercolour on paper
- Signature: lower left, rauscher
- Sitter: the actress Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992); see
/sitters/marlene-dietrich - Attribution: confirmed
- Documentation basis: primary, with image
- Location: Klapka György Múzeum, Komárom (see
/klapka-muzeum) - Period: 1928-1930
- Literature:
/bibliography#szamado-2019
Cite this record
GR-0026, Marlene Dietrich (1929), Klapka György Múzeum. The György Rauscher Archive, https://gyorgyrauscher.com/works/marlene-dietrich-1929 (last reviewed 2026-06-03).
