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Lot Essay
Although drawing was an essentially a private practice for Klimt, his works on paper are among the finest creations in the artist's oeuvre. Major innovations in Klimt's work first took place in the intimate realm of drawing, which he increasingly relied on to artistically explore his own notions of femininity. As identified by Alice Strobl, the present work belongs to the earliest series of preparatory studies for the oil painting Leda of 1917, which was part of the outstanding collection of Klimt's work belonging to August Lederer destroyed by fire at the Immendorf Palace in 1945. Klimt's series of preparatory drawings for Leda noticeably evolves from the sprawling, invitingly prone model in Liegender Halbakt nach rechts into the more foetal, horizontally placed pose that would eventually be used in the painting.
Sketching the model with precise and delicate contours onto simili Japan paper, Klimt distilled the naked human form and the folds of enveloping fabric to its essence, clearly evoking the Japanese erotic prints he so admired and which adorned his studio walls. As in Japanese art, Klimt emphasizes the erotic tension by the interplay between what is revealed and what is concealed, laying central focus on the woman's sex whilst almost entirely concealing her upper half. By combining the influence of oriental technique with the classical allegory of Leda, Klimt reveals his desire to raise sexuality to the level of art and to establish the primal mystery of the female as life's fundamental motivating force.
Sketching the model with precise and delicate contours onto simili Japan paper, Klimt distilled the naked human form and the folds of enveloping fabric to its essence, clearly evoking the Japanese erotic prints he so admired and which adorned his studio walls. As in Japanese art, Klimt emphasizes the erotic tension by the interplay between what is revealed and what is concealed, laying central focus on the woman's sex whilst almost entirely concealing her upper half. By combining the influence of oriental technique with the classical allegory of Leda, Klimt reveals his desire to raise sexuality to the level of art and to establish the primal mystery of the female as life's fundamental motivating force.