#adele bloch-bauer i

(I made this in like 2018)

Austrians Adele Bauer and Gustav Klimt met in the late 1890s. It is believed by many that they became lovers, though no actual evidence exists. Her parents married her off to a wealthy banker and sugar manufacturer named Ferdinand Bloch in December, 1899. The couple hyphenated their last names.  Gustav Klimt was a portrait artist and muralist, influenced by the art of his time, the Belle Époque period, painting in the Art Neuveau and Arts and Crafts styles. He began painting in gold and adding gold leaf to his paintings in 1890, but his “Golden” or “Byzantine” period began in earnest in 1898. In 1903, during a trip to Ravenna, Italy, he visited the Basilica of San Vitale, where he saw the gold mosaic portraits of  Justinian I and Empress Theodora, which he described as a “revelation.”  Ferdinand commissioned this portrait of Adele in mid-1903. Adele had already modeled for Klimt, his first painting featuring her being Judith and the Head of Holofernes (1901). She also modeled for The Kiss (1908). Klimt finished this portrait in 1907. He finished a second portrait of her in 1912.  During the early years of World War II, the Nazi government seized the assets of the Bloch-Bauer family. The efforts to have this painting’s return to their possession were documented in the book The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece,  Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (2012)  by  Anne-Marie O'Connor, in three documentaries, and a motion picture, Woman in Gold (2015), starring Helen Mirren.

Trixie Mattel as Klimt’s Adele Bloch-Bauer I Portrait

Artemis: In 1903 Gustav Klimt was commissioned by Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer to paint a portrait of his wife. Klimt created more than 100 studies.. He completed the painting Adele Bloch-Bauer I in 1907. (images: wiki)

image source wikimedia commons

Gustav Klimt, Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907), oil, silver, and gold on canvas, 140 x 140 cm. Collection of Neue Galerie, New York, New York, USA. Via Wikimedia Commons.

love this painting x