(Vienna 1862–1918) Portrait of a woman in profile with a ruched collar, 1904/05, pencil, white accents (collar) on paper, 55 x 35 cm, inscribed on the edge of sheet by a foreign hand: Disegno originale di Gustavo Klimt - avuto da Raffaele Calzini nel 1925. Giucè Ghiglione - ... and on the reverse: Für die Echtheit dieser Original-Handzeichnung von Gustav Klimt wird volle Garantie geleistet. R. Buttschneider-Vienna guarantees for the authenticity of this original-handdrawing by Gustav Klimt (K)

Dr Marian Bisanz-Prakken will include this drawing in her catalogue raisonné of works in the Albertina: Gustav Klimt, Die Zeichnungen, volume V.

Provenance:
Private Ownership, Italy

The present autonomous half portrait drawing of a woman in slight-quarter-pose is to be dated 1904/05. The metallic sharp pencil lines with which the artist precisely defined the silhouette of the profiles as well as the eye-part, the nose and the mouth are characteristic for Klimt`s drawing style of these years that correspond with the beginnings of his „Goldenen Stils [Golden Style]“. The drawn portraits of Jan Toorop (1858–1928), the Dutch symbolist, were formative for his image. He deeply influenced Klimt. Independently, Klimt played off the linear sharpness of the face against the aerial, white parts of the clothes. For example, the group of drawn half portraits of „Engländerin [the English woman]“, dated 1904/05, may be compared (Strobl II, no. 1196-1208). Marian Bisanz-Prakken, Albertina Vienna, October 2012