Seated, Frontally Viewed Lady

in a Ruched Gown, Study for an Unrealised Portrait of Magda Mautner von Markhof

1904/05, Black chalk on paper, 550 x 350 mm, Strobl 1220

Estate stamp at lower right: NACHLASS / GUSTAV / KLIMT

Provenance: Private collection, Austria

Literature:

Alice Strobl, Gustav Klimt. Die Zeichnungen, vol. II: 1904–1912, Salzburg: Verlag Galerie Welz, 1982, pp. 15, 24–25, WVZ no. 1220 (illus.).

Marian Bisanz-Prakken, Gustav Klimt. Drawings, Vienna: Wienerroither & Kohlbacher Edition, 2018, no. 33

Magda Mautner von Markhof (1881–1944) was one of three daughters born to the second marriage of Carl Ferdinand Mautner von Markhof, scion of a Viennese brewing dynasty. Raised in a household passionately and proactively committed to the arts, she trained at the Viennese Kunstgewerbeschule under Alfred Roller and, briefly, in Paris with Maurice Denis. She soon embarked on assembling a collection of her own, hoping that this would capture the distinctive spirit of “Viennese art”. Yet, shortly after her marriage, in 1913, to Alois Grasmayr (a teacher and dialect poet), she settled in Salzburg. It is probable that Magda herself commissioned the (unrealised) portrait from Klimt for which, in 1904/05, he made preparatory drawings.