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Hermine Gallia
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
Gustav Klimt created this drawing in preparation for a painted portrait, now in the collection of the National Gallery, London. Both depict Hermine Gallia, née Hamburger, who belonged to a wealthy Jewish family in Vienna. Through vanguard circles in the city, she met the artist and commissioned a canvas of her own likeness. This sheet may have been drawn from life, given its loose and sketchlike facture, seemingly meant to quickly record Gallia's form on the elaborate white dress in which she posed.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineHermine Gallia, c. 1904. Gustav Klimt (Austrian, 1862–1918). Black chalk with graphite on light brown laid paper; sheet: 45.6 x 31.2 cm (17 15/16 x 12 5/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Henry H. Hawley, 1972.312
