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The iconic portrait of Klimt

Klimt, Gustav, painter (1862-1918). Portrait photograph inscribed and signed.

Probably Vienna, no date.

164 x 79 mm on backing cardboard (249 x 165 mm).

The iconic portrait of the painter holding one of his cats was taken by Moritz Nähr in 1911, in the garden of Klimt's studio. Nähr, a friend of Klimt's, was one of the most important innovators in Viennese photography around the turn of the century; several of his works have achieved similar fame: the Secessionists in the Vienna Secession before the opening of the "Beethoven Exhibition" (1902), Gustav Mahler at the Vienna Court Opera (1907), or Ludwig Wittgenstein (1930).

Uncommonly clean: an immaculate print with only very slight fingerstaining to cardboard.

Provenance: according to information provided by the previous owner, the photograph was acquired from the estate of the nurse who cared for the painter before he succumbed to the Spanish flu.