Speakasso › Paintings › Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I
Gustav Klimt, 1907
Adele Bloch-Bauer, wife of a Viennese sugar magnate and hostess of a fashionable salon, was the only person Klimt painted twice. He worked on this portrait for three years: a pale-faced woman with nervously clasped hands nearly dissolves into a golden haze, her dress strewn with Egyptian eyes and triangles, her chair with spirals. It came to be called Austria's Mona Lisa. The Nazis seized it in 1938, and only in 2006, after a long legal battle, was it returned to heiress Maria Altmann and then sold to New York.
What is in the painting
- Egyptian eyes. The dress is covered with a pattern of eyes inside triangles, like ancient Egyptian painting.
- Clasped hands. Thin hands are pressed to her chest, one awkwardly folded over the other.
- Wall of gold. Background, dress and chair fuse into one golden plane; only face, shoulders and hands stand out.
Did you know? Ronald Lauder bought the portrait in 2006 for a reported 135 million dollars, at the time the highest price ever paid for a painting.
About the painting
- Artist
- Gustav Klimt (1862–1918)
- Year
- 1907
- Style
- Art Nouveau, Vienna Secession
- Medium
- Oil, silver and gold on canvas
- Size
- 138 × 138 cm
- Where to see it
- Neue Galerie, New York
How to describe it in Speakasso
In Speakasso you describe the painting in your own words and an AI draws it again. These words are forbidden in this round — each one costs 15 points:
A description that scores high
A pale, dark-haired lady sits in the center facing us, her thin hands clasped awkwardly at her chest. Everything around her, her gown, the seat and the space behind, melts into one flat shimmering plane of yellow metal leaf, patterned with swirls, triangles and little eye shapes like ancient Egyptian art. Only her face, bare shoulders and hands look like real skin. Flat, ornamental, glittering decorative painting.
The tricky part: Describe the shine instead of naming the metal: one glittering yellow metallic plane where her gown, seat and surroundings all merge.
The method behind it: what is painted first, then where things are, then colour and light, then the style. Read the full guide
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