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On Japan laid paper. One of only 2 known impressions by the artist. Signed lower right and inscribed ‘Handdruck’. With the estate stamp and the inscription ‘H 168 II’ in India ink, the numbers ‘K 10014’, ‘9696’ and ‘35665’ in pencil and the stamp ‘Unverkäuflich E L Kirchner’ on the verso.
New catalogue raisonné: Gercken 532. Earlier catalogues raisonnés: Schiefler H 168. There the description by Kirchner and Schiefler:
‘Nude, reclining woman in full figure, the head in the upper right corner of the picture, the feet of the half-drawn and spread legs at the left edge of the picture. She is lying on her back with the r. half of her body slightly upright. He is lying on his back with the r. half of his body slightly raised and holding his r. hand on his l. shoulder, under the figure a blanket with the depiction of grimacing heads at the corners.’
Dodo (Doris Grosse), Kirchner’s partner during his last years in Dresden, who did not want to come to Berlin with him in the autumn of 1911 and whom Kirchner always mourned, is presumed to be stretched out on a bed in the Brücke studio at Berliner Strasse 80 in Dresden. Behind her, at the top centre and left, are the heads of two wood-carved figures, possibly ‘Hockende, Kopf nach links geneigt’, Henze 1910/14, on the left and ‘Stehende of hoher Plinthe’, Henze 1910/24, in the centre. The influence of African sculpture is also noticeable here in the forms of the woodcut, creating a wonderfully intense atmosphere.
