Processing
Oil-on-canvas pictography "Picta" category. Painted with Maimeri, Winsor and Newton and Schminke paints. Working with magnifying glass. Hot chalk reliefs, gilding in 18 kt. pure gold leaf, real silver leaf and copper.Linen canvas mounted on frame. Solid wood frame gilded in gold leaf.
History
Gustav Klimt's portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I depicts a woman against a golden background with colorful tesserae inspired by Egyptian mythology, imparting a timeless aura of sacredness. The absence of spatial depth recalls ancient religious depictions, while the woman's hands and face emerge from the two-dimensionality, expressing eroticism and melancholy. This reflects the theme of conflict between eros and thanatos, also present in other works by Klimt such as Judith I and Judith II. After being seized by the Nazis in the 1930s, the painting was renamed The Woman in Gold. The rightful heir, Maria Altman, a concentration camp survivor, launched a long legal battle to regain the painting, culminating in 2006 with its purchase by Ronald Lauder for $135 million. The work is now on permanent display at the Neue Galerie in New York.
Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer