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Executed in 1919.

signed Grosz (lower right); signed and titled Etappe Gent on the reverse

pen and ink on paper

The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Ralph Jentsch.
PROVENANCE

Private Collection, Switzerland (sale: Kornfeld & Klipstein, Bern, 20th - 21st June 1973, lot 313)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

George Grosz, Ecce Homo, Berlin, 1923, illustrated pl. 74
Ruth Berenson & Norbert Muhlen, George Grosz, New York, 1960, illustrated pl. 28 (titled Trio)
George Grosz, Ecce Homo, London, 1967, illustrated p. 740
Uwe M. Schneede, George Grosz. Die Welt ist ein Lunapark, Zurich, 1977, illustrated pl. 46
Peter-Klaus Schuster, George Grosz: Berlin-New York, Berlin, 1994, no. X.156/74, illustrated p. 471
CATALOGUE NOTE

The present work, executed in 1919, shows a brothel scene, depicting two German types, soldiers of low rank, sitting at a table with a prostitute. The expressions in their faces are emotionless, calculating, their attitutes numb. In several of Grosz's drawings of those years, the artist intended to show the brutality of mankind. The Prussian military class and powerful industrialists were his particular targets, no one was exempt from the artist's ironic, biting satire (fig. 1).

This work is a drawing for Grosz's influential cycle Ecce Homo, published in 1923.

FIG.1 George Grosz, Stützen der Gesellschaft, 1926, oil on canvas, Staatliche Museen - Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Nationalgalerie, Berlin