Portrait of Johanna Staude

Portrait of Johanna Staude (1917–18) is among Klimt's last completed works, left unfinished at his death in February 1918 following a stroke. Johanna Staude was the daughter of a Viennese art dealer, and the portrait was commissioned in the final months of Klimt's life, during which he was working simultaneously on The Bride and Adam and Eve. The unfinished state of the canvas — the background and parts of the clothing are broadly sketched while the face approaches completion — offers an unusual window into Klimt's working process: he worked from the face outward, establishing psychological presence before elaborating the surrounding decorative field. The Belvedere holds this alongside several other late Klimt works, including The Kiss, making its collection the primary site for understanding his final artistic statements. The floral-patterned coat or jacket that frames the face is characteristic of his late portraits, in which women's fashionable dress — often designed by his companion Emilie Flöge — becomes the pretext for elaborate decorative passages.

Canvas left intentionally incomplete — the face and neck are brought to a high finish while surrounding areas remain at varying stages of underpaint and rough sketch. This unfinished state is an inadvertent document of Klimt's procedure: psychological presence established first, ornamental surround built up afterward.