European Art and Old Masters

Literature

Alice Strobl, Gustav Klimt, Die Zeichnungen, 1912-1918, Salzburg, 1982, Vol. III, pp. 38-39, no. 2262 (illustrated).

Note

Please note the lead image was converted in black and white to bring up the contrasts of the faded red crayon for the sole purpose of the sale's online viewing.

The present work belongs to a series of approximately 15 preparatory drawings Klimt executed in 1913, for the completion of his famous oil Die Jungfrau (The Virgin), now in the National Gallery of Prague in Czechia. Throughout this group of studies, Klimt experimented with many techniques such as graphite, blue and red wax crayon, as illustrated here.

Unlike his famous, earlier, portraits of elegant and powerful women of the high Viennese society, which Klimt most often depicted standing, and dressed in ornamental costumes, the present work features a reclining nude, whose suggestive pose and overall lasciviousness vividly contrasts with Klimt's very polished and statuesque Académies, thus implying a more mature and radical artistic approach to the female body. Here, the woman's silhouette is outlined in soft red crayon, her left arm elegantly resting behind her head while her other hand stretches towards her inner parts. Reclining diagonally across the sheet with her eyes closed, she appears asleep, caught in the moment, and definitely unaware (or unbothered) by our presence. This bold image channels the inner, and controversial, philosophy behind The Virgin, which depicts a naked teenager asleep under a blanket who gives way to her inner sensual fantasies. In doing so, Klimt captures the tension between the innocence implied by the sitter's young age, and her greater sexual awakening. By depicting her in a deep sleep, Klimt implies the woman-to-be is not responsible for her scandalous actions, which results in a very freudian image of an innocent virgin overtaken by her luscious dreams. It echoes Klimt's own total approach to the subject as Rainer Metzger notes: "Klimt became nothing but an eye, nothing but a hand, purely from the feeling that moved and enraptured him, was in love with the nature of his subject and he let himself be carried away without restraint."

Rather than being entirely nude, the figure here is subtly wraped in an ornamented drapery, which only increases the eroticness of the moment and accentuates the delicacy of her figure. The influence of Japanese art – especially erotic color woodcuts – is clearly on view here. Klimt himself owned an extensive collection of Japanese prints and Southeastern garments, which may very well include the cloth depicted here, its characteristic polka dots appearing in other works of the same period.