Gustav Klimt:
Head of a Bearded Man in Three‑Quarter Profile Facing Right (Kopf eines bärtiges Mannes im Dreiviertelprofil nach rechts), 1879/1879
black chalk, white heightening
40.5 × 25 cm
Private collection
(Strobl s27)

This drawing belongs to Klimt’s early academic training at the Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule, where he enrolled in 1876. Klimt studied alongside his younger brother Ernst and Franz Matsch, who followed the same programme of model drawing, perspective exercises and applied design. The school’s curriculum relied on repeated assignments from live sitters and plaster casts, intended to build technical accuracy before students moved into collaborative decorative work. Strobl classifies this sheet as a student exercise from the late 1870s, executed in black chalk with restrained white heightening to mark the fall of light.

The sitter is not identified. Strobl notes that a drawing of the same man by Franz Matsch is known, indicating that both students worked from the same model during their training. The drawing focuses on the accurate rendering of the head’s rotation, beard structure and the controlled distribution of shadow across the face. Klimt follows the conventions of academic draftsmanship: steady contour lines, measured tonal transitions and limited heightening to stabilise volume. After completing their studies, Klimt, Ernst and Matsch formed a working partnership known as the Künstler‑Compagnie, which took on decorative commissions in Vienna during the 1880s. The sheet itself remains a student work without evidence of later use in a larger project.