Seated Female Nude with Red Hair, Her Arms Crossed Above Her Head, c. 1907

Alice Strobl subsumed the present work on paper, together with others from the Leopold Collection, into a group of “Nudes and Semi-Nudes in Various Poses” created around 1907. As with other renderings from this group, Klimt used red crayon, though in the present drawing only for the model’s hair. Owing to this singular accentuation of the hair through color, accompanied by faint red highlights in the area of the lips and chest, the motif is invested with an unusual prominence which appears in stark contrast to the rest of the figure’s outlines merely hinted at with pencil. In a final step, Klimt placed additional strong pencil contours over the red crayon to accentuate the hair, but also the eyes, even further. This striking hair motif appears in another depiction, housed today by the Wien Museum, of a kneeling female nude propping herself up. In this drawing, too, the woman looks at the beholder with a broad smile – it is likely that it was the same model that appears in the present drawing.

FS