“Portrait of Hermine Gallia” by Gustav Klimt

“Portrait of Hermine Gallia” by Gustav Klimt is a portrait in which the sitter, Hermine Gallia (1870 – 1936), is wearing a dress designed by Klimt. 

Numerous preliminary drawings were made for the composition of this work, and several alterations are visible to the naked eye.

Significant portions of the figure’s contour have been altered by Klimt to show the Gallia leaning slightly forward towards the viewer.

Her clasped hands and the slight upward tilt of her head makes her look as if she is engaging with the viewer.

Klimt, as in many of his other portraits, has added abstract, geometric designs, in this example, on the dress, and in the background.

In the background, Klimt added diamond shapes composed of hexagons and triangles patterns on the floor carpet. On Hermine’s dress train, he included a checkerboard effect.

Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt was a symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. “The Kiss” is Klimt’s most famous painting.

Klimt’s primary subject was the female body, and eroticism marks his works.

Klimt was influenced by Japanese art and its methods and achieved success with the paintings of his “golden phase,” many of which include gold leaf. 

Portrait of Hermine Gallia

• Title:             Portrait of Hermine Gallia
• Artist:           Gustav Klimt
• Year:            1904
• Medium:      oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Height: 170.5 cm (67.1 in); Width: 96.5 cm (37.9 in)
• Museum:     National Gallery, London

Gustav Klimt

• Artist:            Gustav Klimt
• Born:             1862 – Baumgarten, Austrian Empire
  Died:             1918 (aged 55) – Vienna, Austria-Hungary
• Nationality: Imperial Austrian
• Movement: Symbolism, Art Nouveau
• Notable work:
  • Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I
  • The Kiss
  • Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein
  • Portrait of Hermine Gallia
  • The House of Guardaboschi
  • The Maiden
  • Gustav Klimt – Landscapes
    • Farm Garden with Sunflowers
    • Avenue in the Park of Schloss Kammer
    • Schloss Kammer am Attersee III
    • Beech Grove I
    • Oberösterreichisches Bauernhaus
    • Rosebushes under the Trees
    • The House of Guardaboschi

GUSTAV KLIMT

Explore The National Gallery

16th Century Paintings

• “Mystic Nativity” by Sandro Botticelli – 1550
• “Virgin of the Rocks” by Leonardo da Vinci – 1506
• “The Madonna of the Pinks” by Raphael – 1507
• “The Raising of Lazarus” by Sebastiano del Piombo– 1519
• “Salvator Mundi” by Andrea Previtali – 1519
• “Bacchus and Ariadne” by Titian – 1523
• “The Ambassadors” by Hans Holbein the Younger – 1533
• “Mary Magdalene” by Girolamo Savoldo – 1540
• “Saint George and the Dragon” by Tintoretto – 1558
• “The Family of Darius before Alexander” by Paolo Veronese – 1567
• “Diana and Actaeon” by Titian – 1569
• “The Rape of Europa” by Paolo Veronese – 1570
• “The Death of Actaeon” by Titian – 1575
• “The Origin of the Milky Way” by Tintoretto – 1575

17th Century Paintings

• “Supper at Emmaus” by Caravaggio – 1601
• “Samson and Delilah” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1610
• “The Judgement of Paris” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1635
• “Aurora abducting Cephalus” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1637
• “Equestrian Portrait of Charles I” by Anthony van Dyck – 1638
• “Venus at her Mirror” by Diego Velázquez – 1651
• “Self Portrait at the Age of 63” by Rembrandt – 1669
• “A Young Woman standing at a Virginal” by Johannes Vermeer – 1670

18th Century Paintings

• “Bacchus and Ariadne” by Sebastiano Ricci – 1713
• “A Regatta on the Grand Canal” by Canaletto – 1740
• “Mr. and Mrs. Andrews” by Thomas Gainsborough – 1749
• “Eton College” by Canaletto – 1754
• “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” by Joseph Wright of Derby – 1768
• “Self-portrait in a Straw Hat” by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun – 1782

19th Century Paintings

• “Portrait of Doña Isabel de Porcel” by Francisco Goya – 1805
• “The Emperor Napoleon I” by Horace Vernet – 1815
• “Dido Building Carthage” by J. M. W. Turner – 1815
• “Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows” by John Constable – 1831
• “The Execution of Lady Jane Grey” by Paul Delaroche – 1833
• “The Fighting Temeraire” by Joseph Mallord William Turner – 1839
• “Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway” by J. M. W. Turner – 1844
• “Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence” by Frederic Leighton – 1855
• “Madame Moitessier” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres– 1856
• “The Gare St-Lazare” by Claude Monet – 1877
• “Bathers at Asnières” by Georges Seurat – 1884
• “Sunflowers” by Vincent van Gogh – 1888
• “After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself” by Edgar Degas – 1895
• “Boulevard Montmartre at Night” by Camille Pissarro – 1898

20th Century Paintings

• “Misia Sert” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir –  1904
• “Portrait of Hermine Gallia” by Gustav Klimt – 1904
• Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses) by  Paul Cézanne – 1905
• “Men of the Docks” by George Bellows –  1912
• “Water-Lilies” by Claude Monet (National Gallery, London) – 1916

Gustav Klimt’s ‘Bildnis Gertrud Loew (Gertha Felsőványi)’

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“Truth is like fire; to tell the truth means to glow and burn.”
– Gustav Klimt

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Photo Credit: 1) JOM