Young Couple, 1904?

The etching »Young Couple« highlights Käthe Kollwitz’ fascination with the Nabis group of artists whose works she saw during her stays in Paris in 1901 and 1904. The thematic adoption of the burning lamp and the small-patterned wallpaper reveals her examination of the Nabis and gives the entire representation a uniform two-dimensionality.

In this etching, Käthe Kollwitz took up a theme she had already dealt with around 1893. She was inspired by Max Halbe’s Youth, a Naturalist love drama that had its premiere at the Berlin Residenztheater in 1893.

Study

Käthe Kollwitz, Self-portrait, full length, seated, 1893, pen and ink, washed, NT 87