Studie zu dem Gemälde "Feinde ringsum". Um 1914.
Pencil drawing and graphite, heightened with white chalks.
Signed in the lower right and inscribed "130 a", probably by a hand other than that of the artist. On gray-blue laid paper by Ingres d`Arche (with watermark). 47.6 x 27.6 cm (18.7 x 10.8 in), size of sheet. [JS].

• Antique-style physicality: a masterfully composed study of a male nude from behind.
• Large-format study of the left swordsman in Stuck's painting “Feine ringsum” (1914, private collection), created at the beginning of the First World War.
• A year later, Stuck developed the motif of athletically fighting nudes into the well-known mythological motif “Hercules and the Hydra” (1915) in the Museum Villa Stuck.

PROVENANCE: Private collection, Switzerland.
Galerie Jörg Schuhmacher, Frankfurt am Main
Private collection, South Germany (acquired from the above in 2003).
Family-owned ever since.

LITERATURE: Koller Auktionen, Zurich, Gemälde und Skulpturen des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, Schweizer Kunst, Moderne Graphik, December 12, 2000, Lot 1024 (illustrated).

In good condition. Edges browned all around and partially with faint brown spots, especially in the upper corners with isolated small areas of damage or small tears caused by mounting. With isolated faint creases and handling marks as well as isolated slight spots, some of which are probably from the studio.