Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), Sitting Lady, 1912

Title: Sitting Lady (study of an unrealized portrait of Magda Mautner-Markhof)
Author: Gustav Klimt
Year: 1912
Technique: Graphic based on a drawing, published as a gesture of Klimt's appreciation on his 50th birthday by Arpad Weixlgartner
Dimensions: 30 x 40 cm, 42 x 52 cm (with frame)
At the bottom typographically: GUSTAV KLIMT, ZECHNUNG, LICHTDRUCK DER K.K. HOF- U. STAATSDRUCKEREI, WIEN
Condition: very good
Provenance: Work purchased in Vienna

Gustav Klimt (born July 14, 1862 in Baumgarten, today in Penzing, 14th district of Vienna, died February 6, 1918 in Vienna) - Austrian painter and printmaker. One of the founders of the Vienna Secession and its first president.
Gustav Klimt's paintings often depict female figures emanating eroticism as an expression of human life relationships and feelings such as hope, love and death. For this reason, he became a much sought-after portraitist of women in Vienna.
Klimt's work can be divided into several periods: Historicism (1879-80), Antique inspiration (1886-1891, monumental works at the Burgtheater and the Museum of Art History in Vienna), Impressionism(Schubert at the Piano (1896), Young Woman in an Arm chair (1896), Portrait of a Lady (1897), Lady (Woman) by the Fireplace (1897/98), Lady (Woman) in an Armchair (1897/98) and Portrait of Sonja Knip (1898)) and from 1897 onward. Art Nouveau. From the mid 1890s onward, he used a gold background in several paintings, showing the influence of Japanese art (Japonism). The use of gold in paintings is characteristic of Gustav Klimt. (Catholic denomination)