Allegory of Sculpture

Allegory of Sculpture (1889) was produced for the publication Allegorien und Embleme, an Austrian decorative arts anthology for which Klimt and Franz Matsch provided illustrations. The commission came during the period of the Künstler-Compagnie, the collaborative studio partnership the two painters had formed with Ernst Klimt after graduating from the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts) in Vienna. Allegorien und Embleme was a prestigious applied arts publication that sought to provide designers with high-quality allegorical imagery for decorative programs, and Klimt's contributions demonstrate the close relationship between fine art and decorative design that characterised his early career. The allegory of sculpture — a female figure associated with sculptural art — participates in a long tradition of personified arts going back to Cesare Ripa's Iconologia. Klimt's version, however, already shows the ornamental ambition and decorative self-consciousness that would evolve into the Secession aesthetic: the figure is embedded in a designed environment of ornamental forms rather than simply depicted in neutral space. The MAK – Museum of Applied Arts holds this work, an appropriate institutional context given its origins in the applied arts milieu.

Gouache or mixed media on paper, designed for reproduction. Klimt employs clear contour lines compatible with the printing demands of the publication, combined with careful flat colour areas and tonal modelling. The decorative border or surround, likely also by Klimt, integrates figure and frame in the manner that would characterise his mature work.