Black Chalk drawing. Verso inscribed by a hand other than that of the artist. On packaging paper. 46 x 31.1 cm. , size of sheet. [CH].

• Preparatory study for the famous painting "Portrait of Hermione Gallia" (1904, National Gallery, London).
• The drawings for the painting were made in several sessions at Klimt's studio.
• Instead of the facial features, the artist put focus on the posture, pose and dress of the sitter, which makes up more than a third of the image, both in our study and in the painting.
• An expression of Klimt's intensive occupation with the materiality of the then very fashionable ‘Reform’ dress.
• Klimt rendered the essence of the delicate, flowing fabric of the elegantly swinging flounce and the train made of several layers of almost translucent chiffon with a lively stroke and a rich line.
• Both in the present work and in the monumental painting, the portrayed seems to almost float above the ground due to the lightness of the material.
• At the beginning of the 20th century, Hermine and Moriz Gallia were part of the wealthy Viennese bourgeoisie. They adorned their five-storied house on Wohllebengasse with, among other things, avant-garde paintings, decorative arts from the Wiener Werkstätte and the most modern furniture by Josef Hoffmann.
• Other drawings for "Portrait of Hermine Gallia" can be found in museums like the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Neue Galerie at the Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz.
LITERATURE: Alice Strobl, Gustav Klimt. Die Zeichnungen, vol. I (1878-1903), Salzburg 1980, cat. no. 1053, pp. 298f. (with illu.) and pp. 292f. (with full-page illu.). Alfred Werner, Gustav Klimt. One Hundred Drawings, New York 1972, cat. no. 46 (with illu.).