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ONLINECOLLECTION

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

Leopold Museum,
Vienna
Black chalk on brown paper
44.3×30.6 cm

Artists

  • Gustav Klimt

    (Baumgarten near Vienna/Vienna 1862–1918 Vienna)

Unfortunately not on display at the moment
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.

Object data

Artist/author
  • Gustav Klimt
Title
Standing Naked Pregnant Woman from the Left, Two Compositional Sketches to the Right. Study for Hope I
Date
c. 1902
Art movement
Art Nouveau, Symbolism
Category
Graphic work
Material​/technique
Black chalk on brown paper
Dimensions
44.3×30.6 cm
Credit line
Leopold Museum, Vienna, Inv. 1343
Inventory access
Contributed to the Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung in 1994
Selection of Reference works
  • Gustav Klimt. Jahrhundertkünstler, hrsg. von Hans-Peter Wipplinger/Sandra Tretter, Wien 2018 (Ausst.-Kat. Leopold Museum, Wien, 22.06.2018–04.11.2018).
  • 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 1878-1903, Salzburg 1980.
Catalogue raisonne
  • Strobl Bd. 1/1980: 992
Keywords

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Provenance

Provenance research
Leopold Museum i

Magda Mautner-Markhof, Wien, später Magda Grasmayr, Salzburg (o.D.);
Dr. Klaus Grasmayr, Salzburg (1944-1954);
Dr. Rudolf Leopold, Wien (1954-1994); (1)
Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung, Wien (1994).

  1. Alice Strobl, Gustav Klimt. Die Zeichnungen 1878-1903, Bd. 1, Salzburg 1980, S. 284, Nr. 992; Michael Wladika, Dossier „LM Inv. Nr. „1343, 1347, 1348, 1349“ vom 31.01.2018

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