Lady in White

When Gustav Klimt unexpectedly suffered a severe stroke in January 1918 from which he died a month later, there were some paintings he was recently working on that remained unfinished. Some of these paintings had been partially started, such as "Portrait of a Lady in White." The painting has no links to any particular portrait commission. It is likely one of his idealized female portraits, which the master artist created from his nude models and gave idealistic traits. He often drew this type of anonymous portrait, predominantly in pencil. Klimt clearly wanted to portray a certain type of woman he felt to be particularly charming and attractive. In this similarly fictitious portrait, Klimt seems to have given himself greater freedom in portraying the model. A woman's face that smiles so broadly, as in "Portrait of a Lady in White," is unusual for one of Klimt's painted portraits but is often found in drawn portraits of women.