Sonja Knips

On 12 November 1898 the Vienna Secession opened its own exhibition building, designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich, with the motto "To every age its art, to art its freedom" in gold letters under a dome of laurel leaves. In that first show inside it, Klimt hung this portrait, the first time he had used a large square canvas for one. The sitter is Sonja Knips, born Baroness Potier des Echelles, who was 24 and had married the industrialist Anton Knips two years earlier. The paint is laid on so softly that the edges of the pink dress blur into the dark room, almost like pastel. The small red book in her hand is thought to be Klimt's own sketchbook, bound in red leather, which stayed among her belongings. It is one of only three of his sketchbooks to survive. In 1950 Sonja Knips sold this portrait to the Belvedere herself, together with Klimt's unfinished Adam and Eve.