Portrait of Marie Breunig

Gustav Klimt rendered this Portrait of Marie Breunig around 1894, a large-format oil on canvas measuring 168 x 84 cm. The work shows the wife of a Viennese bakery owner in profile, her porcelain-white skin contrasting dramatically with her black dress against a neutral background. Klimt received the commission through the Flöge sisters' fashion salon, where Breunig was a client.

The portrait demonstrates almost hyperrealistic accuracy in places, likely aided by photography. Yet Klimt's painted version differs through extraordinary refinement of reality. The contrast between pale skin and deep black appears particularly delicate, carefully built up through precise brushwork.

Marie Breunig was born in humble circumstances in one of the Austro-Hungarian crownlands before marrying a successful Viennese businessman. This large portrait represents the high point of Klimt's early 1890s style, before the golden decorative period that would make him famous. The work held in a private collection, though the Belvedere Museum in Vienna has exhibited it.