Badende in Felsen. Um 1924.
Color Chalk drawing.
Signed in bottom center. With the estate stamp of the Kunstmuseum Basel (Lugt 1570 b) and the hand-written registration number "FS Da / Bf 7" on the reverse. On firm, smooth paper. 36.5 x 40.5 cm (14.3 x 15.9 in), the full sheet.

• First published during the artist's lifetime (Grohmann 1925).
• Fully executed drawing in strong colors from his creative period in Davos.
• Unlike the conventional color pen drawings, in which color is more like a coloristic element, Kirchner creates this depiction from within the color, adding a pictorial component to the drawing.
• In 1921, the dancer Nina Hard, whom he had met at a bar in Zurich, stayed with E. L. Kirchner for a couple of days at his house "In den Lärchen" in Davos-Frauenkirch.
• A photo shot during the visit shows Nina Hard and Kirchner's partner Erna Schilling skinny dipping in a creek.
• This work was presumably made in context of this visit.

The work is documented in the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Archive, Wichtrach/Bern.

PROVENANCE: From the artist's estate (Davos 1938, Kunstmuseum Basel 1946, with the hand-numbered estate stamp on the reverse).
Hermann Gerlinger Collection, Würzburg (with the collector's stamp, Lugt 6032).

EXHIBITION: Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig (permanent loan from the Hermann Gerlinger Collection, 1995-2001).
Frauen in Kunst und Leben der "Brücke", Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig, September 10 - November 5, 2000, cat. no. 121 (with illu.).
Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle an der Saale (permanent loan from the Hermann Gerlinger Collection, 2001-2017).
Buchheim Museum, Bernried (permanent loan from the Hermann Gerlinger Collection, 2017-2022)
Kirchners Badende. Einheit von Mensch und Natur, KirchnerHAUS Museum, Aschaffenburg, October 16, 2021 - January 16, 2022, cat. no. 43 (with illu.).

LITERATURE: Will Grohmann, Zeichnungen von E. L. Kirchner, Dresden 1925, cat. no. 97 (with illu., here still without signature).
Heinz Spielmann (ed.), Die Maler der Brücke. Sammlung Hermann Gerlinger, Stuttgart 1995, p. 273, SHG no. 400 (with illu.).
Hermann Gerlinger, Katja Schneider (eds.), Die Maler der Brücke. Inventory catalog Hermann Gerlinger Collection, Halle (Saale) 2005, p. 352, SHG no. 788 (with illu.).