Two Female Semi-Nudes Turned Towards Each Other from the Right, 1911/12

In terms of motif, the two reclining nude girls recall the embracing nudes Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) created in 1905/06 in connection with drafts for the second version of the painting Water Snakes II. For formal reasons, however, Alice Strobl associated the drawings with a group of nude studies, characterized by overly slender proportions and angular contours, that date back to around 1911/12. In these works, Strobl detected influences that Klimt derived from the young Egon Schiele (1890–1918). Schiele’s impact on Klimt must have been particularly fascinating to the Schiele collector Rudolf Leopold, and there is indeed another drawing from this stylistically homogenous group in his collection, the work Standing Female Nude in Profile from the Right, Her Head Turned Away. In the curved arch of the two reclining figures in the present drawing, Alice Strobl saw a proximity to the rounded large forms characteristic of the preliminary drawings for the painting The Virgin likely created shortly afterwards.

FS