Bäuerinnen am Brunnen auf der Stafelalp. Um 1919.
Watercolor over charcoal.
Signed in lower right. On light board. 50 x 38 cm (19.6 x 14.9 in), the full sheet.
Verso with a pencil sketch "Hirten mit Ziege und Kühen" from around 1919. [AM].
• Remarkable graphic expressiveness.
• Comprehensive exhibition history.
• The spontaneously conceived watercolors are documents of the great expressionist's virtuosity.

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

PROVENANCE: Ernst Arnold, Dresden (May 1925).
Collection Dr. Heinrich Stinnes, Cologne (presumably acquired from the above, until 1938: Klipstein Bern, June 20 - 22, 1938. Verso twice with the collection stamp, Lugt 4437).
Günther Franke, Munich (acquired from the above, in the estate until 1988).
Collection Blohm, Hamburg (since 1988:Galerie Kornfeld, Bern, June 17, 1988).

EXHIBITION: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Zeichnungen, Aquarelle, Pastelle. Aus einer Privatsammlung, Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig, Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal, December 4, 1992 - January 31, 1993, cat. no. 15 (with illu.).
Ernst Ludwig Kircher: Von Jena nach Davos. Eine Ausstellung zum 90. Gründungsjubiläum des Jenaer Kunstvereins, Stadtmuseum Göhre, Jena, October 10, 1993 - January 16, 1994, cat. no. 41 (with illu.) (with the exhibition label on the reverse) Aquarelle der 'Brücke', Brücke-Museum, Berlin, September 14, 1995 - January 7, 1996, cat. no. 27 (with illu.) (with the exhibition label on the reverse).
Im Zentrum: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Eine Hamburger Privatsammlung, Hamburger Kunsthalle, October 26, 2001 - January 13, 2002, Kirchner Museum, Davos, January 27 - April 14, 2002, Brücke-Museum, Berlin, January 17 - March 2, 2003, cat. no. 67 (with illu.) ((with the exhibition label on the reverse)).

LITERATURE: Will Grohmann, "Kirchner-Zeichnungen". Arnolds Graphische Bücher, 2nd series, vol. 6, Dresden 1925, illu. on plate 78.
Doktor August Klipstein, Bern, Moderne Graphik der Sammlung Heinrich Stinnes (…), June 20-22, 1938, lot no. 463 (with illu.).
Galerie Kornfeld, Bern, auction 198, June 17, 1988, lot 65.
"..My malady is still the same. [..] But the loneliness in this great landscape among fine and noble people is wholesome. Its an inner cleansing."
(Letter from Ernst Ludwig Kirchner to Gustav Schiefler from March 21, 1919, in: Wolfgang Henze (ed.), Briefwechsel 1910-1935/1938, Stuttgart/Zürich 1990, p. 118)