H.O. Miethke Das Werk folio "Judith I" collotype print
By Gustav Klimt & K.K. Hof-und Staatsdruckerei
Located in Palm Beach, FL
Judith I, no. 9 from the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts
Much like his treatment of the Classical personage, Danae, from Greek mythology, Klimt’s depiction of Judith takes an Old Testament character, a heroine who avenges the death of her husband by killing an Assyrian king, and firmly positions her in his present-day Vienna. His multicolored collotype rips the canvas from its gilded frame which directly references the subject with its title: “Judith und Holofernes”. Now in print form, Judith, holding the severed head of a male in murky shadow, is the ultimate Viennese femme fatale. Her likeness is unmistakably similar to a former lover of Klimt’s and famous Viennese soprano, Anna von Mildenburg. Though his allusion to ancient Assyria is apt, Klimt literally lifted the gold patterned background’s design motif from a relief detail from Sennacherib’s Palace displayed in a London museum. His context then is contemporary. In a sensual and sexually powerful tour de force, Klimt’s Judith...
Category
Early 1900s Vienna Secession Palm Beach