Standing Dancer from the Right with Ruff, 1904

This drawing belongs to the group of studies that Alice Strobl subsumed under the heading “Female Dancers”. Though the model is not carrying out any dynamic dance movement, the flamboyant position of the hand, especially, can be interpreted as a dance-like, mimic staging. The striking drapery, which was hitherto described as a ruche-trimmed dress, is actually a combination of two garments – a scarf-like, ruche-trimmed stole, which was worn by the protagonists from the aforementioned group of dancers in several depictions, and a trouser-like undergarment also trimmed with ruches, which in similar drawings reaches up to the center of the body, and in others covers the entire torso. Another special feature of this work on paper from the Leopold Museum is the monogram, inscribed into a square, that Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) added to it, something he rarely did in his drawings. An identical monogram can be found in Klimt’s 1902/03 painting Portrait of Emilie Flöge.

FS