Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
1880 - 1938

Mädchen am Elbkai. 1909.
Lithograph in colors. Color print from the same stone, made in four steps in dark blue, gray-blue, yellow, and red.
Signed and inscribed “Handdruck.” With the estate stamp of the Kunstmuseum Basel (Lugt 1570b) and the hand-written registration number “L 43 I” on the reverse. One of only seven known copies of this color print. 32.5 x 38.3 cm (12.7 x 15 in). Sheet: 37,8 x 44,9 cm (14,9 x 17,7 in).
The drawing in ink and pen with a similar motif, “On the Elbe near Dresden” (from a sketchbook), is in the collection of the Museum Folkwang, Essen. [CH].

• Hand-printed by the artist.
• Of the only six other known copies, two are in museum collections (Sprengel Museum, Hanover; Kunstmuseum Bochum), and one is missing (formerly Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin).
• To date, only one other copy of this print has been offered on the international auction market (source: artprice.com).
• At that time, Kirchner and the “Brücke” artists appropriated the traditional medium of printmaking and used it to realize their highly unconventional, groundbreaking, and innovative artistic vision.

PROVENANCE: From the artist’s estate (with the estate stamp on the reverse, Lugt 1570 b).
Presumably Stuttgarter Kunstkabinett Roman Norbert Ketterer, Stuttgart.
Private collection (acquired from the above in 1954, subsequently in the family’s possession).
Private collection, Southern Germany (acquired from the above in 2015, Sotheby’s, London).
In the family’s possession ever since.

LITERATURE: Günther Gercken, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Critical Catalog of Prints, vol. 2 (1909–1911), Bern 2013, CR no. 305 a (of b, illustrated, different copy).
Annemarie and Wolf-Dieter Dube, E. L. Kirchner. Das graphische Werk, Munich 1967, CR no. L 131.
Gustav Schiefler, Die Graphik Ernst Ludwig Kirchners, vol. 1 (through 1916), Berlin-Charlottenburg 1926, CR no. L 43.
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Probably Stuttgarter Kunstkabinett, 19th Auction, May 19, 1954, lot 991.

"The seemingly fleeting drawing is no longer representational and limits itself to outlining the major forms. It recedes in the face of the colors, by which it is largely overprinted. The colors are applied loosely, leaving much of the paper ground exposed. The transparent, flowing application of paint reinforces the impression of the watery nature of the Elbe. The four running girls in their colorful dresses seem to flit by, the lightness of their movements finding its artistic counterpart in the rapid drawing and the curved forms of the colored areas of their dresses."
Günther Gercken, in: Ex. cat. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Farbige Druckgraphik, Brücke-Museum, Berlin / Paula-Modersohn-Becker-Museum, Bremen, Munich 2008, pp. 39f.