Mäda Primavesi (1903-2000)

Klimt painted this across 1912 and 1913, and the striking thing is the child's confidence. Mada Primavesi was nine, the daughter of a Viennese banker and industrialist who backed the city's most advanced art and design. She stands square to us on a floor of scattered pink and white, chin level, hands behind her back, holding the room the way the adults in Klimt's portraits do. By her own memory she was willful and something of a tomboy, and she sat while Klimt worked through pose after pose in his sketches. Her dress was made by the fashion salon of Emilie Floge, Klimt's close companion. Mada outlived nearly everyone connected to the picture, dying in the United States in 2000.