(Duisburg 1881–1919 Berlin)
Badendes Mädchen (Badende) – Bathing Girl,
plaster 1902/05, bronze cast probably before 1910,
signed W. LeHmbruck, patinated bronze, height 64 cm

Provenance:
Karl und Faber, Munich May 1978, sale 147, no. 1702
Dr. Büsen Collection, North Rhine-Westphalia
Private Collection, Germany

Literature:
Schubert, Dietrich, Wilhelm Lehmbruck – Catalogue raisonné der Skulpturen (1898–1919), Worms 2001, p. 162 ff, no. 12 – C. I./4, p. 165

We are grateful to Prof. Dietrich Schubert, University of Heidelberg, for his kind assistance in cataloguing the work.

The Kunstakademie Düsseldorf possesses a bronze cast from Wilhelm Lehmbrucks sculpture “Badende”, that was already acquired 1905. He studied there from 1901 until 1906 and created the “Badende” during his studies from 1902 on.

His sculpture “Badende” (1902–1905), offers a particularly vivid evocation of Wilhelm Lehmbruck’s approach to the stylistic pluralism of the Gründerzeit and Neoclassicism. The smoothness of the surfaces, the idealisation of feminine beauty, the proportions of the figure, and its pose, as well as its timelessness, are testament to the classical training that Lehmbruck received in Düsseldorf.
Most of his sculptures are free-standing and executed in the round. The viewer needs to look at them from all sides to capture the figure in its entirety. Their strict approach to form adheres to the principles of sculpture established as far back as Ancient Greece: Wilhelm Lehmbruck distinguishes between the engaged leg and the free leg, and fixed proportions (which he terms “measure” or “dimensions”) determine the shape of the body. A slightly twisted pose, with the upper body bent to the left and the bather’s right elbow splayed to the side, break up the fixed arrangement of the sculpture. The soft curves of the nude body, along with the position of the right hand on the hip and the left on the calf, correspond to the overall impression of the calm attitude of the bather which Wilhelm Lehmbruck seeks to convey to us.