The Austrian Gustav Klimt remains one of the most recognized painters worldwide, and his work has been defined by many art critics as one of the most original of the late 19th century. In his work, Klimt used various techniques: gold leaf, tempera and oil paint, and captured a “languid” type of character who often seemed to have an almost “floating” appearance (an effect that the artist largely achieved because almost all of his models posed lying on a bed or a sofa).
Catalogs of Klimt’s work say that the Viennese industrialist Adolf Lieser commissioned the artist to paint a portrait of his daughter Margarethe Constance. However, new research suggests the possibility that Klimt’s model could have been Helene, a niece of Adolf. It has been documented that between April and May 1917, the model visited the painter’s studio nine times to pose for him. After the artist’s death in 1918, the unfinished work was given to the Leiser family.
You may be interested: Violent demonstrations ‘shake’ Haiti
In the 1960s the painting was acquired by a member of the current owner’s family, who received it through three successive inheritances. Proceeds from the auction will benefit the current owners and the legal successors of Adolf and his sister-in-law Henriette Lieser, who commissioned this beautiful portrait.
Gustav was the most representative figure of pictorial modernism (Jugendstil) in the German-speaking world. He trained at the school of applied arts in his hometown and triumphed as the author of large decorative paintings in an academic style, of which the paintings on the stairs of the Museum of Art History in Vienna are a good example.
You can read: Violence and organized crime: Crucial challenges for development in Latin America and the Caribbean