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Description: Conceived circa 1932 and cast between November 1938 and September 1939. inscribed E. Barlach bronze

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Dimensions: length: 41cm., 16 1/8 in.

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Provenance: Galerie Commeter, Hamburg
Private Collection
Galerie Ferdinand Möller, Cologne
Private Collection, Germany (acquired from the above in 1951)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

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Published: Friedrich Schult, Ernst Barlach, Das Plastische Werk, Hamburg, 1960, no. 71, illustration of another cast p. 65
Ernst Barlach (exhibition catalogue), Wiener Künstlerhaus, Vienna & BAWAG-Fondation, Vienna, 1984-85, no. 7, illustration of another cast p. 90
Elisabeth Laur, Ernst Barlach - Das plastische Werk, Güstrow, 2006, no. 517, illustration of another cast p. 238

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Notes: The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Dr Elisabeth Laur.
Russische Bettlerin II is executed with the utmost sensibility for form and content, whereby the artist brilliantly renders the figure's posture. The spirit with which Barlach has rendered the beggar woman is highly evocative, capturing her kneeling, the face hidden in her lap and covered by her scarf. Barlach saw the human form as a vessel holding the greatest secret, which he sought to uncover. Effectively, the artist left the human body wrapped in clothing. Only the clothed shape, the sensed rather than the obvious, was able to express the psychic twilight of the human figure as he felt it.