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Female Nude in Dance Pose, Study for the painting Two Nudes (Lovers)
Female Nude in Dance Pose, Study for the painting Two Nudes (Lovers)

Female Nude in Dance Pose, Study for the painting Two Nudes (Lovers)

Oskar Kokoschka (Austrian, 1886–1980)
1912
Medium/TechniqueCharcoal on paper
DimensionsSheet: 45.2 × 31.5 cm (17 13/16 × 12 3/8 in.)
Credit LineVirginia Herrick Deknatel Purchase Fund
Accession number2018.3149
On View
Not on view
ClassificationsDrawings
InscriptionsIn black chalk, l.l.: OK; verso, l.l.: purple stamp from the National Gallery, Prague (possibly an export stamp); in graphite, l.r.: 16 (circled)ProvenanceFrom the artist to a member of his family, Prague [see note 1]. 1984, private collector, Prague; March 28, 1984, anonymous (Prague private collector) sale, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London, lot 318 [see note 2]. Between 1984 and 1987, M. Knoedler and Co., Zurich [see note 3]. July 1, 1987, anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, London, lot 452. Lafayette Park Gallery, New York [see note 4]. By 1994, private collection, Brussels [see note 5]; by descent to a private collection, Germany; November 30, 2018, anonymous (German private collector) sale (sale 299), Grisebach GmbH, Berlin, lot 572, sold to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 12, 2018)

NOTES: [1] According to the 1984 auction catalogue, the provenance of this drawing and the previous lot, also a drawing by Kokoschka, was “the family of the artist, Prague.” Kokoschka's sister, Berta Patóckova Kokoschka (b. 1889 - d. 1960) of Prague owned a number of his sketches of Alma Mahler of around 1912/1913, and it is possible that she was meant.

[2] According to Alfred Weidinger and Alice Strobl, Oskar Kokoschka: Die Zeichnungen und Aquarelle 1897-1916 (Salzburg, 2008) p. 323, cat. 461, and as confirmed by Sotheby's, the consignor of the drawing in 1984 was a Prague private collector.

[3] According to the 1987 auction catalogue.

[4] Weidinger and Strobl, 2008 (as above, n. 2).

[5] Lent to “Oskar Kokoschka: Das Frühwerk (1897/98-1917): Zeichnungen und Aquarelle (Albertina, Vienna, 1994), cat. no. 125 by a private collection, Brussels; and “Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, Kubin: Graphiken aus einer österreichischer Privatsammlung“ (Schlossmuseum Linz and Bröhan-Museum, Berlin, 2004–2005), where the collection—begun by an Austrian national and inherited by his son in Germany—was said to come from a large collection in Brussels.