From the late 1890s, Gustav Klimt gradually established his reputation as a portraitist of Viennese bourgeois women, producing a number of female portraits—many of the models remain unidentified. Recent research has associated this particular painting, with its Impressionist feel and depiction of a young woman against a lush green natural backdrop, with Maria Ucicka (1880–1928). Ucicka, a model in Klimt’s household, gave birth to the artist’s first illegitimate son, Gustav Ucicky, in 1899. In total, he had at least 14 illegitimate children.
The sitter is shown in a slight twist, wearing a fashionable summer hat and a white high-necked blouse with puffed sleeves. Her light blue eyes gaze directly at the viewer—at Klimt himself. Her finely painted, delicate oval face with gently flushed cheeks suggests a sense of shyness or vulnerability.
This subtle, sensitive style of painting shows the beginning of Klimt’s lyrical and ethereal portraits of women. We see a striking contrast of the figure to the broader, rougher brushstrokes used in the surrounding foliage. The dense leaves above her right shoulder are rendered in deep greens.