Gustave Klimt. A portrait of Adele Bloch-Bower I. 1907. New York, New Gallery.
The painting depicts Adele Bloch Bauer, a very famous social lady in Vienna at the beginning of the twentieth century. In her niece Maria Altman’s memory, Adele Bloch Bauer was a woman who was arrogant, arrogant and painful, suffering from headaches, smoking unstoppably and terribly tender. In 1899, she married Ferdinand Bloch, an 18-year-old monopolist sugar planter. Her older sister Teresa was already married to Ferdinand’s brother, Gustave’s lawyer. The Blokh and Bauer families had a strong relationship, so in 1917, the sisters Teresa and Adele asked their husbands to change their names to double Bloch Bauer, and they agreed. So Adele and Teresa sought to keep their parents' last name, since in 1915 their eldest and the last of the four brothers, Eugene, had died, leaving no male offspring. Adele and Ferdinand Bloch Bauers tried to be parents three times, but unsuccessfully: Adele had two miscarriages and the third child died two days after birth. Adele herself died of meningitis in 1925.
