Hermine Gallia (c. 1904): Art, History and Details

Hermine Gallia (c. 1904) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Gustav Klimt (Austrian, 1862–1918).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the 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.

Object facts

• Title: Hermine Gallia
• Date: c. 1904
• Creator attribution: Gustav Klimt (Austrian, 1862–1918)
• Culture: Austria
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: black chalk with graphite on light brown laid paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 45.6 x 31.2 cm (17 15/16 x 12 5/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - Austrian
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1972.312

A detail from the museum

This drawing is one of about 40 drawings made by Gustav Klimt for his painted portrait of Hermine Gallia.

Collection credit

Gift of Henry H. Hawley

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.