Gustav Klimt—From Study to Painting

This study was created a few years later, in 1901. Rose von Rosthorn (1864—1919) was born into a Viennese corporate dynasty. In 1886, she married the industrialist Ludwig Friedmann and was one of the earliest Austrian mountaineers. 

After the end of World War I, she became infected with typhoid while caring for wounded war veterans. She died in 1919. She was said by Alma Mahler to have had a relationship with Klimt.

An equally remarkable woman painted by Klimt was Margarethe Stonborough-Wittgenstein. 

She resided in Berlin, New York, Paris, Austria, and Switzerland, and was instrumental in organizing Sigmund Freud's escape from the Nazi regime. As a Jew, she was forced to leave Austria. When the war ended, she returned to Vienna, where she died in 1958.

From the sketch for the painting, which was commissioned by Margarethe's parents on the occasion of her marriage to the American manufacturer Jerome Stonborough in 1904, it is evident that Klimt was particularly interested in the qualities of different materials.

Baroness Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt was born in 1894, as the daughter of industrialist parents. In 1921, she married Wolfgang Freiherr von Bachofen-Echt, part of a beer brewing dynasty who divorced her due to her Jewish heritage when the National Socialist party took power.

Gustav Klimt confirmed her paternity, enabling her to escape Nazi persecution. The study shows Elisabeth in a full-length pose. Klimt outlined her eyebrows, nose, and hairline in just a few strokes. The sketch is easily comparable with its later painting.

This Klimt painting shows just how much his drawing skills influenced the way he painted. This small work of art that was found in Klimt's studio when he died in 1918 is one of the artist's final pieces. The female portrait was left unfinished.

Klimt's picture of a woman's head is one of great timelessness and vitality, focused on the fundamental aspects of a portrait. The assuredness and fervor of the drawing are reflected in the small number of concentrated color segments around the face.