Girl in the Foliage

From the late 1890s onwards, Gustav Klimt gradually established himself as a portraitist of the ladies of the Viennese bourgeoisie, creating a series of early female portraits in the process whose sitters have not yet been identified. Latest research has linked this painting, reminiscent of Impressionism and showing a young woman in front of a rich green nature backdrop, with Maria Ucicka (1880–1928), the model in the artist’s household who gave birth to Klimt’s fist illegitimate son Gustav Ucicky in 1899. The portrayed is depicted in a slight twist wearing a fashionable summer hat and a white, high-necked blouse with puffy sleeves, her light blue eyes trained on the beholder, the artist. The precisely rendered and fine-boned oval face with slightly flushed cheeks indicates a certain shyness or insecurity. The delicate manner of painting marks the beginning of Klimt’s subsequent lyrical and airy portraits of the ladies Maria Henneberg, Gertrud Loew and Hermine Gallia, and stands in marked contrast to the wide, coarse brushwork used to render the surrounding nuanced green foliage. While the compact leafage above her right shoulder was rendered in dark shades of green, the garish verdant highlights above her left shoulder call to mind the color palette of the early Salzkammergut landscapes Klimt painted.