The Story Behind Gustav Klimt's Portrait Of An 'Independent' 9-Year-Old Girl

''In 1912, Austrian artist Gustav Klimt painted a portrait of a 9-year-old girl.

Her name was Mäda Primavesi. Born in 1903, she was the daughter of Eugenia and Otto Primavesi, the latter a banker and glass manufacturer from Olmütz, in what is now the Czech Republic. Both the mother and father were known for hosting decadent salon-like gatherings at their country home and supporting the community of artists and architects called the Wiener Werkstätte. So they were cozy with the likes of Klimt and his contemporaries.

Otto commissioned the seven-foot portrait, a painting that would go down in history, according to the Getty Museum, as Klimt’s only major work featuring a child. To prepare, Klimt created numerous studies of the late Mäda perched atop a chair or leaning forward impishly. The pose that made it to the final frame involves the girl staring directly at the artist, her legs sternly parted and her arms stationed defiantly behind her back. She appears not unlike Klimt’s adult female subjects ― if anything, she seems more confident. And perhaps she was...''

by Katherine Brooks