This was sold by Maria Altmann, who – after a lengthy and complicated court battle – was deemed rightful owner of this Klimt and several others.
Altmann was named as an inheritor of the painting in the will of by the widowed husband of the model herself, despite the efforts of the Austrian State, as Adele Bloch-Bauer had originally left the painting to the State Gallery in her own will.
The painting was bought by Ronald Lauder for his Neue Galerie in New York, to be the centerpiece of a collection of Jewish-owned art rescued from the Nazi looting that took place in the Second World War.
In this greatest gold style paintings, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer 1, Klimt flattened the woman’s dress so that it shares the same picture plane as the background.
Then he blended them together by merging the decorative dress with an equally decorative background.
Yet the dress is still distinguishable from the background. Actually, the painting has two backgrounds: a flat wall, and a golden membrane or ornamental cocoon wrapped around Ms. Bloch-Bauer.
Sinuous lines, swirls, and large and tiny squares distinguish the membrane from the dress, which is comprised of silver arrowheads, and gold pyramids with eyes in them. The latter give the impression that the dress is watching us.
But the woman’s face, neckline, hands and forearms are classically modeled, so that she emerges from the background and her own flattened body as three dimensional woman.
Gustav Klimt – Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer 1
