Four Roses. Study from a Former Sketchbook, c. 1883

This nature study of a rose belongs to a group of eleven rose studies, which according to the latest findings, were once contained in one of Gustav Klimts younger brother Ernst (1864–1892) sketchbooks and were subsequently divided into individual sheets. Eight of these sketches are housed today by the Leopold Museum. The works on paper show nature studies of roses and parrots, as well as copies of paintings from the picture gallery and armaments from the weapons collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The artist’s rose studies impress with their great variability which ranges from the highest degree of graphic meticulousness to mere sketch-like hatching within one and the same drawing.

Text Leopold Museum