Elsbeth mit Hühnern. 1902/03.
Charcoal and Watercolor over pencil.
Lower left and right with the estate signatures "f. P. M B. / T. M." und "f. P. M. B. / T. Modersohn" from Tille Modersohn. 22.7 x 31.8 cm (8.9 x 12.5 in), size of sheet. [CH].

• Consistent provenance: From the artist's estate.
• Characteristic small sketch in the artist's signature style.
• Spontaneously rendered observation of rural life in Worpswede.
• Similar motif as in "Kinder und Hühner vor Landschaft" (around 1902, Busch/Werner 295) and "Elsbeth mit Hühnern unter Apfelbaum" (around 1902, Busch Werner 296).

PROVENANCE: From the artist's estate (1876-1907).
Collection Mathilde "Tille" Modersohn (1907-1998, the artist's daughter), Bremen.
Galerie Wolfgang Werner, Bremen/Berlin (from the artist's estate).
Collection Deutsche Bank AG, Frankfurt a. M. (acquired from aforementioned in 2000).

LITERATURE: Deutsche Bank AG (editor), Man in the Middle. Deutsche Bank Collection, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 183 (with color illu.).
"This certain incompletion, that's what the French are good at. [.] We Germans always dutifully finish our picture, we are far too cumbrous to impromptu render a small sketch, which, in many cases, says more than a fully executed picture."
Paula Modersohn-Becker, quite after: ex. cat. Paula Modersohn-Becker. Aufbruch in die Moderne, Buchheim Museum, Bernried 2019/2020, p. 66.