旧ブルク劇場の客席

In 1888 Vienna was about to tear down its old court theatre, the Burgtheater, and move it to a grand new building on the Ringstrasse. The city council hired the young Gustav Klimt to record the interior first. But instead of painting the stage, he turned around and painted the audience. From a low spot at the edge of the stage he laid in nearly 200 tiny faces, well over a hundred of them recognizable members of Viennese society who sat for their own likeness. This is Klimt years before the gold leaf and the scandals, still a careful society painter, and the picture won him the Emperor's Prize of 400 ducats the following year.