Female back view nude with vase 1899

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For description see below.

JQAW# G_1899_020
Pastel (mixed media) 94 x 114 cm
Signature: J Quincy Ɑdams 99 I.I.
Unknown private collection.

Full body female nude, in back view. She is sitting on a leopard skin, her legs crossed, her right hand supported on the fur. Wearing black hair, these gathered into a knot at the back of the head. To her right a floor vase of cream-colored porcelain, with handles and golden cross rings. Background formed by a white curtain.

This back view nude study was first exhibited at the Künstlerhaus in 1899 and disproves the often-discussed "prudish" exhibition practice of the house (which was one of the reasons for the 1897 split of the Secession artists around Gustav Klimt from the Künstlerhaus). Both from the depiction of the body and the two-dimensional, only brushstroke-structured background, the painting is definitely "modern", far from the allegorical nude scenes of the Markart period and of Adam's teachers at the Academy (such as Christian Griepenkerl). As is often the case with nude studies from the turn of 1900 (it was a prudish age, artists notwithstanding), the provenance is undocumented. The painting therefore appears only in recent auction catalogs and is not mentioned in any of the literature on Adams.

Cross-references

Exhibited

1899 Künstlerhaus Vienna (EL 42 1899/1900 #153, as nude study).

Literature

Provenance

Unknown.
Auction Kieselbach Budapest 19.2.1998 Lot 246.
Unknown.
Auction Kinksy Vienna 20.11. 2007 lot 207 (unsold). Unknown private collection.