Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Drei sitzende nackte Mädchen und Pfeife rauchender Maler am Strand
. 1913.
Pencil drawing.
With the estate stamp of the Kunstmuseum Basel (Lugt 1570 b) and the hand-written registration number "B Be / Bf 105" on the reverse. 45.2 x 58.6 cm (17.7 x 23 in), size of sheet. [CH].
• From the sought-after Berlin years.
• E. L. Kirchner spent the summer of 1913 with his partner Erna Schilling on Fehmarn, his beloved retreat away from the hectic life in Berlin.
• Only a few months after the artist group disbanded, Kirchner"s former "Brücke" colleague Otto Mueller and his wife Maschka came to visit Fehmarn in the summer of 1913.
• Kirchner composed a figure scene presumably with a smoking Otto Mueller, Maschka Mueller and Kirchner"s partner Erna Schilling and her sister Gerda.
• The motif of the elegantly dressed man next to three female nudes is also taken up by the artist as a studio scene in his painting "Urteil des Paris" (1913, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen).
• It is possible that both works show different interpretations of the well-known mythical epic in which Zeus instructs the young Paris to choose the most beautiful of the three goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite
.