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Lot Essay
Around 1904, the fashion for the new and more natural expressiveness of dancers such as Loïe Fuller and Isadora Duncan swept Vienna. American modern dance offered a progressive alternative to the tired conventions of traditional ballet. The flowing rhythms of this new dance movement became a significant element in Auguste Rodin's drawings, and Klimt and other artists of the Vienna Secession turned to this subject as well.
The present drawing is one of a series Klimt executed during this time that shows dancers nude or clothed. The costume itself may have been influenced by the fanciful and titillating designs seen in Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations for Aristophanes's Lysistrata, published in 1896. Klimt had depicted Hermine Gallia in a more discrete version of this attire in the portrait he made of her in 1903-1904 (Novotny and Dobai, no. 138). The model here wears a filmy headdress known as a ball-entrée. She is very likely the English girl who appears in series of drawings also done around this time, which feature her distinctive profile (Strobl, nos. 1196-1208).
The risqué, orientalist look of these costumes inspired Franz Blei to choose two drawings in this series, one a dancer (Strobl, no. 1182a), and the other English girl seen with her head reclining (Strobl, no. 1185a), to illustrate his translations from the verse of the first century Roman poet Lucan. Published in Leipzig as Die Hetärengesprache (The Conversations of Courtesans) in 1907, the book became a popular seller.
The present drawing is one of a series Klimt executed during this time that shows dancers nude or clothed. The costume itself may have been influenced by the fanciful and titillating designs seen in Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations for Aristophanes's Lysistrata, published in 1896. Klimt had depicted Hermine Gallia in a more discrete version of this attire in the portrait he made of her in 1903-1904 (Novotny and Dobai, no. 138). The model here wears a filmy headdress known as a ball-entrée. She is very likely the English girl who appears in series of drawings also done around this time, which feature her distinctive profile (Strobl, nos. 1196-1208).
The risqué, orientalist look of these costumes inspired Franz Blei to choose two drawings in this series, one a dancer (Strobl, no. 1182a), and the other English girl seen with her head reclining (Strobl, no. 1185a), to illustrate his translations from the verse of the first century Roman poet Lucan. Published in Leipzig as Die Hetärengesprache (The Conversations of Courtesans) in 1907, the book became a popular seller.