Lot 317 Dα

Even if Otto Mueller's depictions of women appear faintly individualised, he repeatedly found the models for his works among his lovers. The present sheet was created during the period of his separation from his first wife, Maschka. The artist had already begun an affair with his student Irene Altmann in the summer of 1919, and she then became his muse.
The theme of the nude in the landscape takes on diverse forms in Otto Mueller's work. His richly multifaceted variations range from pure figural compositions to extensive landscape passages featuring separate figures. As with the other artists of the “Brücke”, these nudes in nature point to an affinity with the characteristic contemporary ideas of the life-reform movement and its ideal of a paradisiacal primal state of being consisting in humanity's unity with nature.
In this context the detail-like formulation of the bathing scene, with the girl light-heartedly sitting naked next to the water, is able to open up a view on to an earthly paradise. Viewers find themselves presented with a timeless Arcadia that seems to be less an idyllic pathos formula than a utopian promise filled with longing.