Standing Female Nude with Supported Left Leg. Study for Adam and Eve, 1914/15

Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) worked on the painting Adam and Eve in 1917 but was unable to finish it. Alice Strobl associated this work with numerous studies, including drawings which for stylistic reasons must be dated to 1914/15. These show early variants of the motif of standing lovers in ecstatic poses, which would appear in the painted version in a modified form, as well as studies of individual standing females, as in the present work. The hands, softly placed on the shoulder, which Klimt rendered in a detailed manner in this drawing, give an approximate indication of the position of Eve’s hands in the later painting which Klimt would explore in great detail in subsequent studies. The drawing further vividly conveys the strange ambivalence, elicited by the standing pose and dreamy, other-worldly facial expression, which also characterizes the couple in the painting.

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