509 - Gustav Klimt (1862 Baumgarten near Vienna – Vienna 1918)

Gustav Klimt (1862 Baumgarten near Vienna – Vienna 1918) Study of a Girl in Profile, Facing Left Black chalk and pencil, highlighted in white, on brownish vellum. (c. 1885). Approx. 45 x 31.5 cm. We thank Dr. Elisabeth Dutz, Albertina, Vienna, for her kind assistance in cataloging this work. The work is listed in the online catalog of the Albertina, Vienna, under the number “GK3968.” • A light, airy depiction of a young girl • Study for a painting set in the theater in Karlsbad • Sketch-like yet full of visual power What might this elegantly dressed girl be doing there? Created around 1885, this pen-and-ink drawing by Gustav Klimt takes us into the master’s sketching process. We see a young girl in a light Empire-style dress leaning over an invisible balustrade. Her location must remain a mystery: Is she attending a theater or opera performance? Is she looking down from her window onto the street? And what is the mysterious object in her right hand, which seems to vanish into the sketch’s looseness? Klimt executes this study with particular delicacy, almost in keeping with the subject matter. Using black chalk with minimal highlights, he creates a fleeting snapshot. The girl thus becomes an almost ethereal apparition that begins to take shape around her hips, only to vanish again at her forearms. The work was created in the context of Klimt’s commissions for the theater in Karlsbad. Excessive preparation is a fundamental part of artist Gustav Klimt’s creative process; all his paintings are accompanied by dozens of preliminary studies and sketches. In these, Klimt meticulously records every little detail, practicing seemingly inconspicuous details over and over again, experimenting, refining, and discarding. It is therefore quite possible that Klimt is attempting here to capture a female theatergoer from Karlovy Vary society. Or perhaps she is an actress about to perform a balcony scene—one might think of Shakespeare’s Juliet, for example? It is also possible that he is using a model (now anonymous) here to dissect a movement. Exhibition: Gustav Klimt. The Ronald S. Lauder and Serge Sabarsky Collections, Neue Galerie, New York 2007/08; *Bloom and Doom. Visual Expressions and Reform in Vienna 1900*, Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, Vermont, 2016; *Klimt Landscapes*, Neue Galerie Museum, New York 2024. Provenance: Estate of the artist, with the stamp (Lugt 1575); Collection/Estate of Serge Sabarsky, New York; Collection/Foundation of Vally Sabarsky, New York. Taxation: subject to regular taxation (VAT: Regular Taxation).