Portrait of a Lady

Gustav Klimt

Oil on canvas

Galleria Ricci Oddi

Gustav Klimt's Portrait of a Lady (also known by its German title Porträt einer Dame or Bildnis einer Frau) is an oil painting on canvas executed between 1916 and 1917, during the final phase of the artist's career. The work depicts an unidentified woman from the shoulders up, rendered with loose, expressive brushstrokes and a subtle, enigmatic gaze; her attire features colorful decorative motifs reflecting the influence of Japonism. As a founding member of the Vienna Secession and a defining figure of Art Nouveau, Klimt by this late period had moved away from the gilded ornamentation of his celebrated Golden Phase toward a rawer, more introspective approach influenced by Expressionism. The painting is notable not only for its psychological intimacy but also for the discovery, via X-ray analysis in 1996, that it was painted over an earlier lost portrait—making it the only known double portrait in Klimt's oeuvre.