Der Lebensbaum

By 1909 Klimt had a standing order from a Belgian banker named Adolphe Stoclet, who was building a marble mansion in Brussels and wanted its dining room to feel like a jewel box. This is one of the full-size drawings Klimt made for that room, and it was never meant to hang as a picture. Craftsmen at the Wiener Werkstatte would translate it, line for line, into a wall of marble, gilded tile, enamel and coral, so these swirling golden branches ended up set in stone across the dining-room wall. Klimt reached back to Egyptian and Byzantine models for the flat gold and the spiralling forms. The couple embracing at the far end of the scheme is a close cousin of the pair in his Kiss, painted in these same years.