Skip to content
ONLINECOLLECTION
Search

Female Nude Bending Forward and Putting on Stockings, 1908/09

Leopold Museum,
Vienna
Pencil on Japanese paper
55.1×34.2 cm

Artists

  • Gustav Klimt

    (Baumgarten near Vienna/Vienna 1862–1918 Vienna)

Unfortunately not on display at the moment
In this unusual, swiftly jotted down pencil study, Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) presented a model bending down to put on her stockings. The artist chose an angle that makes the model’s body disappear entirely, with the arms and legs temporarily forming a vertical shape reinforced by the painter’s vantage point which hides part of the legs from view behind the edge of the bed. What makes this depiction especially peculiar is that it shows the top of the woman’s head rather than her face, with her pubic region appearing directly below. Alice Strobl associated this motif of an extreme top view of the head with the studies Klimt executed at the same time for the lovers bending forward from the pyramid of life in the painting Death and Life.

FS

Object data

Artist/author
  • Gustav Klimt
Title
Female Nude Bending Forward and Putting on Stockings
Date
1908/09
Art movement
Symbolism, Art Nouveau
Category
Graphic work
Material​/technique
Pencil on Japanese paper
Dimensions
55.1×34.2 cm
Credit line
Leopold Museum, Vienna, Inv. 1298
Inventory access
Contributed to the Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung in 1994
Selection of Reference works
  • Gustav Klimt. Die Sammlung im Leopold Museum, hrsg. von Tobias G. Natter/Elisabeth Leopold, Ostfildern 2013 (Bestandskatalog des Leopold Museum: Band 1).
  • Alice Strobl: Gustav Klimt. Die Zeichnungen 1904-1912, Salzburg 1982.
Catalogue raisonne
  • Strobl Bd. 2/1982: 1888
Keywords
woman/girlnudethe (nude) human figure (fem.)sitting figure (fem.)stockings/socksbent legs (fem.)

If you have further information on this object, please contact us.

Provenance

Provenance research
Leopold Museum i

Nachlass Gustav Klimt, Wien (1918); (1)
Dr. Rudolf Leopold, Wien (vor 1962-1994); (2)
Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung, Wien (1994)

  1. Nachlassstempel »GUSTAV / KLIMT / NACHLASS« auf der Rückseite rechts unten
  2. Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Katalog zu: Gustav Klimt. 1862-1918. Zeichnungen, Gedächtnisausstellung 16. Oktober bis 16. Dezember 1962, Wien 1962, S. 47, Nr. 129

For provenance related information, please contact us.

Search in collection

woman/girlnudethe (nude) human figure (fem.)sitting figure (fem.)stockings/socksbent legs (fem.)