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拍品专文
Adele Bloch-Bauer (fig. 1) has the distinction of being the only woman to have had her portrait painted twice by Klimt. A fascinating and memorable figure in her own right, she was one of the artist's most important patrons, the subject of arguably the finest paintings he ever made, and, it has been suggested, one of the artist's secret lovers.
Born Adele Bauer, the daughter of a wealthy Viennese banker, she married the Viennese industrialist and merchant banker, Ferdinand Bloch in an arranged marriage in 1901. Both Adele and Ferdinand took on the surname of Bloch-Bauer and Adele soon rose to become one of the leading figures in Viennese high society establishing a salon at which such celebrated writers as Stefan Zweig and Jakob Wasserman were regular guests. In 1903 Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer commissioned Klimt to paint his illustrious wife's portrait. Klimt had first met Adele shortly before her marriage to Bloch in 1901. It was then, according to American psychiatrist Salomon Grimberg, that the artist and the soon-to-be-married Adele initiated a secret liaison lasting twelve years that, incredibly in Vienna's gossip-hungry society, remained known only to her maid and physician. Grimberg offers no evidence to support his assumption, but Klimt's paintings of Adele do go some way to support such conjecture.
Adele Bloch-Bauer II was Klimt's largest and final portrait of Adele and in contrast to all previous incarnations, portrays this striking and remarkable woman in yet another light. Here she is presented stock-still staring straight out of the picture dressed in the latest fashion and what is almost certainly a Wiener Werkstatte dress. She is neither the fantasy figure set against shimmering gold as in Adele Bloch-Bauer I, nor mythological femme-fatale but instead a woman who understands and commands her position within Viennese society.
Klimt appears to have had the precise composition of the painting in mind from the outset, for as Alice Strobl has noted (A. Strobl, Gustav Klimt Die Zeichnungen, Salzburg, 1989), unusually, for Klimt, there are no known studies for this picture showing Adele in any different pose. The present study emphasises the importance of line in dictating form and composition for Klimt - these few tentative marks on paper are immediately recognisable as Adele Bloch-Bauer and as the starting point for one of Klimt's most iconic works.
Adele Bloch-Bauer II sold as Property Formerly in the Collection of Adele and Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, Christie's New York, 8 November 2006, lot 54 ($87,936,000, sold after sale).
Dr Marian Bisanz-Prakken has kindly confirmed the authenticity of this work, which will be included in her forthcoming addition to the Klimt catalogue raisonné.
Born Adele Bauer, the daughter of a wealthy Viennese banker, she married the Viennese industrialist and merchant banker, Ferdinand Bloch in an arranged marriage in 1901. Both Adele and Ferdinand took on the surname of Bloch-Bauer and Adele soon rose to become one of the leading figures in Viennese high society establishing a salon at which such celebrated writers as Stefan Zweig and Jakob Wasserman were regular guests. In 1903 Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer commissioned Klimt to paint his illustrious wife's portrait. Klimt had first met Adele shortly before her marriage to Bloch in 1901. It was then, according to American psychiatrist Salomon Grimberg, that the artist and the soon-to-be-married Adele initiated a secret liaison lasting twelve years that, incredibly in Vienna's gossip-hungry society, remained known only to her maid and physician. Grimberg offers no evidence to support his assumption, but Klimt's paintings of Adele do go some way to support such conjecture.
Adele Bloch-Bauer II was Klimt's largest and final portrait of Adele and in contrast to all previous incarnations, portrays this striking and remarkable woman in yet another light. Here she is presented stock-still staring straight out of the picture dressed in the latest fashion and what is almost certainly a Wiener Werkstatte dress. She is neither the fantasy figure set against shimmering gold as in Adele Bloch-Bauer I, nor mythological femme-fatale but instead a woman who understands and commands her position within Viennese society.
Klimt appears to have had the precise composition of the painting in mind from the outset, for as Alice Strobl has noted (A. Strobl, Gustav Klimt Die Zeichnungen, Salzburg, 1989), unusually, for Klimt, there are no known studies for this picture showing Adele in any different pose. The present study emphasises the importance of line in dictating form and composition for Klimt - these few tentative marks on paper are immediately recognisable as Adele Bloch-Bauer and as the starting point for one of Klimt's most iconic works.
Adele Bloch-Bauer II sold as Property Formerly in the Collection of Adele and Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, Christie's New York, 8 November 2006, lot 54 ($87,936,000, sold after sale).
Dr Marian Bisanz-Prakken has kindly confirmed the authenticity of this work, which will be included in her forthcoming addition to the Klimt catalogue raisonné.