Gustav Klimt’s exquisite representations of women have led him to become the most celebrated painter of the female portrait of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mädchen im Grünen, painted in 1896, is a beautiful and captivating work from a crucial period in the artist’s career. Wearing a pure white blouse and a fashionable hat, the sitter is depicted against a background of deep green foliage, an uncommon setting in Klimt’s portraiture. Her face and hair are rendered in delicate feathery brushstrokes that stand in contrast to the quicker, more spontaneous brushwork used elsewhere in the composition; her eyes are at once dreamy and piercing. ‘Klimt shows us the subject of Girl in the Foliage, wearing a hat and a puff-sleeved blouse, in a close-up view. In contrast to the background, in which coarse brushstrokes give a flattened impression, Klimt executed the contours of the face with fineness and precision. This naturalistic mode makes the face, with its pale eyes, the centre of the composition.’ [Sotheby’s, London - Oil on canvas, 32.4 x 24 cm]