Gustav Klimt:
Standing Nude Couple, Embracing. Study for This Kiss to the Whole World from the Beethoven Frieze for the 14th Exhibition of the Vienna Secession (1901)
Black chalk on brown paper
44.9 × 31.8 cm
©Leopold Museum, Vienna
(Strobl s854)

Note from Leopold Museum:
“In the summer of 1901, Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) executed a large number of studies for the Beethoven Frieze within a short period of time. Klimt created this wall frieze for the famous Beethoven Exhibition held at the Vienna Secession from April to July 1902. This drawing is one of around ten known studies for the last scene of Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze which directly refers to the final chorus in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 This Kiss to the Whole World, set to music to Schiller’s Ode to Joy. While the female figure in the study only wraps one arm around the male, she envelopes him with both arms in the final version, investing the group with a more pronounced horizontal finish at the top. Klimt transferred the drawing’s expressive, highly concentrated contours into the execution of the frieze. The front of the work on paper shows the initial “R”, an owner’s mark of the collector Carl Reininghaus. Reininghaus had bought the frieze together with numerous preliminary studies in 1907 and thus saved it from destruction.”