Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer

This late full-length portrait by Gustav Klimt depicts Friederike Maria Beer, a Viennese collector and patron who described herself as a 'walking advertisement' for the Wiener Werkstätte. Klimt accepted the commission in November 1915, reportedly greeting her with the remark that she had only just been painted by Egon Schiele, and prepared with at least forty sketches and studies. In the finished work Beer wears a dress designed by Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill and a fur jacket that Klimt insisted be turned inside out to reveal its brightly patterned 'Flora' lining. The figure is set against a densely worked background of massed warriors and figures adapted from East Asian ceramic decoration, a hallmark of Klimt's late ornamental style. The painting is now held at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art as part of the Mizne-Blumental Collection.