Portrait of a Woman

When Hans Makart, the star painter of Vienna's salons, died in 1884, the city's upper class needed a new portraitist, and within a decade many of them wanted Klimt. The Belvedere calls this canvas, from around 1893 or 1894, his first society portrait of a woman. She stands in profile in a black evening gown with huge puffed sleeves, a thin gold chain at her throat, a patterned rug on the wall behind her. She has been identified as Marie Breunig, wife of a Viennese bakery owner and a close friend of Emilie Flöge, Klimt's lifelong companion. The finish looks almost photographic, and infrared images show why. Under the paint lies a pencil grid of five-centimetre squares, which he used to transfer a photograph of her onto the canvas. The picture is privately owned and has been on long-term loan to the Belvedere since 2013.