Gustav Klimt

Estate of Ernst Klimt, Vienna
Sale: Sotheby's, London, 1st July 1998, lot 120
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

This work relates to Klimt’s depiction of Emilie Flöge in the major oil The Harlequin at the Fair in Rothenburg ob der Tauber (fig. 2).  The larger work, depicting a scene from German theatrical history, was begun by Klimt in collaboration with his younger brother Ernst.  Following Ernst’s death, however, in 1892 Klimt re-worked the composition, inserting the portrait of Emilie Flöge as she dressed in the present work, placing her directly at the feet of the harlequin.  Klimt’s alteration to the arrangement of figures and placement of the eighteen-year-old Emilie, centre stage in the composition, reflects his particular attachment to her.

Klimt’s and Emilie’s families had had close ties for many years.  Family links were further cemented when Emilie Flöge’s elder sister Helen married Klimt’s younger brother Ernst in 1891, a union cut short by his premature death in 1892.  The same year, Klimt was appointed guardian to Helene’s daughter from her union with Ernst.  Such events served to strengthen the bond between Emilie and Klimt.  Although the couple never married, Emilie remained Klimt’s trusted companion throughout his life.

As well as being muse and model, however, Emilie was an astute business woman in her own right, a sophistication Klimt hints at in his later portrait of her from 1902 (fig. 1).  In 1904 she set up with her two sisters Pauline and Helene the Viennese fashion salon Schwestern Flöge.  Situated at 1b Maria-Hilferstrasse the shop fittings were designed by the founders of the Wiener Werkstätte Josef Hoffman and Kolo Moser.  The three sisters managed their dress making venture with considerable success, Emilie travelling regularly to Paris and London to buy cloth and keep abreast of the latest in fashion until the demise of the business in 1938.