Standing Naked Pregnant Woman from the Left, Two Compositional Sketches to the Right. Study for Hope I, c. 1902

This composition of a pregnant nude, depicted in marked profile and with her hands on her belly, comes very close to Gustav Klimt’s (1862–1918) 1903/04 painting Hope I. The only difference is the direction of the woman’s gaze, who is looking down in the study as opposed to looking directly at the beholder in the executed painting. A highly remarkable feature of the study are the two pictorial compositional drafts to the right of the pregnant figure. The upper depiction shows four pregnant women, three in profile and one from the front, while the one furthest to the right is framed by flowers. A larger version of a highly similar composition can be found in another work on paper. The lower sketch depicts three women dressed as nuns, a motif Klimt also repeated in a larger draft. Alice Strobl surmised that in this juxtaposition of pregnant women and nuns, Klimt wanted to render allegories of the vita activa versus the vita contemplativa.

FS