Gustav Klimt
(Vienna 1862–1918)
Auf dem Bauch liegender Halbakt nach rechts (Studie für “Wasserschlangen II”, 1. Zustand) (Half nude lying on her stomach, to the right, Study for “Water Snakes II”), 1904, estate stamp, on the reverse numbered twice 132 and faintly legible inscribed 28, pencil on paper, 35 x 55 cm
Alice Strobl notes that the small numbers in pencil, as here “28”, were used as “Zählnummern” (counting numbers) for Gustav Klimt’s estate, cf. Strobl, IV, p. 221.
Listed and illustrated:
Alice Strobl, Gustav Klimt. Die Zeichnungen 1903–1912, vol. II, Verlag der Galerie Welz, Salzburg 1982, no. 1386
Provenance:
August (1857–1936) und Serena (1867–1943) Lederer, Vienna
Erich Lederer (1896–1985), Vienna & Geneva until after 1982
Private Collection, Austria
Literature:
Gustav Klimt. 25 hand drawings, Gilhofer & Ranschburg, Vienna 1919, plate 12 (labeled “Sketch for the “Water Snakes”)
Fritz Novotny, J. Dobai, Gustav Klimt, Salzburg 1967, p. 335
Gustav Klimt. One hundred drawings with an introduction by A. Werner, New York, 1972, no. 28, ill.
Otto Breicha (ed.), Gustav Klimt. Die goldene Pforte. Werk, Wesen, Wirkung. Bilder und Schriften zu Leben und Werk, Vienna 1978, ill. 115
We are grateful to Marian Bisanz-Prakken for examining this work in the original and her help in cataloguing the work.
Klimt’s oil painting “Wasserschlangen II” (Water Snakes II) is one of the artist’s works in which naked, erotically playful underwater creatures evoke a mysterious fantasy world. It was first shown at the Secession in 1904, but in the years that followed, Klimt revised this first version of the painting giving it the final solution we know today in 1907. What the original version looked like can only be guessed from contemporary descriptions; more detailed insights have been revealed by recent examinations of the painting in the Belvedere in Vienna.
The present sheet was created in the context of the first version and anticipates the lower, prone nude figure at the bottom of the second one in several respects. Nevertheless, the model of the drawing appears much more fragile and slender than the painted figure in the final version. Stylistically, this work is anchored in the pioneering period of Klimt’s pencil technique, in which the highly refined, metallically sharp lines seem to correspond congenially to the earliest paintings of his “Golden Style”.
The present drawing is one of the most beautiful examples of the many studies, also drawn in 1904, in which the models stretched out parallel to the picture plane convey the impression of an endless flow. The textiles here look like water, and the upper outline of the body, accentuated by hatching, is also reminiscent of a wave. Klimt achieves a special effect – similar to the painting – through the darkly framed eyes.
(Marian Bisanz-Prakken)
Bid on this lot
(Vienna 1862–1918)
Auf dem Bauch liegender Halbakt nach rechts (Studie für “Wasserschlangen II”, 1. Zustand) (Half nude lying on her stomach, to the right, Study for “Water Snakes II”), 1904, estate stamp, on the reverse numbered twice 132 and faintly legible inscribed 28, pencil on paper, 35 x 55 cm
Alice Strobl notes that the small numbers in pencil, as here “28”, were used as “Zählnummern” (counting numbers) for Gustav Klimt’s estate, cf. Strobl, IV, p. 221.
Listed and illustrated:
Alice Strobl, Gustav Klimt. Die Zeichnungen 1903–1912, vol. II, Verlag der Galerie Welz, Salzburg 1982, no. 1386
Provenance:
August (1857–1936) und Serena (1867–1943) Lederer, Vienna
Erich Lederer (1896–1985), Vienna & Geneva until after 1982
Private Collection, Austria
Literature:
Gustav Klimt. 25 hand drawings, Gilhofer & Ranschburg, Vienna 1919, plate 12 (labeled “Sketch for the “Water Snakes”)
Fritz Novotny, J. Dobai, Gustav Klimt, Salzburg 1967, p. 335
Gustav Klimt. One hundred drawings with an introduction by A. Werner, New York, 1972, no. 28, ill.
Otto Breicha (ed.), Gustav Klimt. Die goldene Pforte. Werk, Wesen, Wirkung. Bilder und Schriften zu Leben und Werk, Vienna 1978, ill. 115
We are grateful to Marian Bisanz-Prakken for examining this work in the original and her help in cataloguing the work.
Klimt’s oil painting “Wasserschlangen II” (Water Snakes II) is one of the artist’s works in which naked, erotically playful underwater creatures evoke a mysterious fantasy world. It was first shown at the Secession in 1904, but in the years that followed, Klimt revised this first version of the painting giving it the final solution we know today in 1907. What the original version looked like can only be guessed from contemporary descriptions; more detailed insights have been revealed by recent examinations of the painting in the Belvedere in Vienna.
The present sheet was created in the context of the first version and anticipates the lower, prone nude figure at the bottom of the second one in several respects. Nevertheless, the model of the drawing appears much more fragile and slender than the painted figure in the final version. Stylistically, this work is anchored in the pioneering period of Klimt’s pencil technique, in which the highly refined, metallically sharp lines seem to correspond congenially to the earliest paintings of his “Golden Style”.
The present drawing is one of the most beautiful examples of the many studies, also drawn in 1904, in which the models stretched out parallel to the picture plane convey the impression of an endless flow. The textiles here look like water, and the upper outline of the body, accentuated by hatching, is also reminiscent of a wave. Klimt achieves a special effect – similar to the painting – through the darkly framed eyes.
(Marian Bisanz-Prakken)
