작품 상세

Stamped 'GUSTAV KLIMT NACHLASS' lower right.This drawing was created as a preparatory study for the painting "Die Hoffnung II" (Hope II), which was also known as "Vision" (Vision), "Allfruchtbarkeit" (Omni-fertility) and "Legende" (Legend) and was carried out by Gustav Klimt in 1907/08 (cf. Novotny-Dobai no. 155). As in the 1903 painting "Hoffnung I" (Hope I), Klimt deals with the theme of pregnancy here. Before the monumentally towering figure of the pregnant woman, three praying women are depicted at the lower edge of the painting; the artist developed these figures in the present drawing and in two other works (cf. Strobl 1760 and 1762). "Egyptian art, with which Klimt can be proved to have occupied himself, seems to have also influenced the women who stretch into the painting along its lower edge and likewise raise their hands with closed eyes and lowered heads. The gesture recalls the pose of praying Egyptians, as they are to be seen in wall paintings. [...] The three women appear in the role of attendants and protectors of expectant life." (Michaela Seiser, in: Alfred Weidinger (ed.), Gustav Klimt, Munich et al. 2007, cat. no. 188, p. 287). The two delicate female figures of the present sheet already possess the depth of feeling and humility that also characterises the praying figures of the painting.