MORIZ NÄHR (1859–1945)
Gustav Klimt, Vienna 1917

Start price: €10.000

Estimate: € 20.000–25.000

Vintage matt albumen print, mounted on original cardboard

19,8 x 13,1 cm

Signed and annotated “Wien 1917, Frau Johanna Staude, zur freundl. Erinnerung von Gustav Klimt” by Gustav Klimt in ink on the mount

LITERATURE Uwe Schögl / Hans-Peter Wipplinger (eds.), Moriz Nähr, Cologne 2018, p. 138.

PROVENANCE Private Collection Vienna

This photograph was taken by Moriz Nähr during a portrait session in 1917 in front of the artist’s studio on Feldmühlgasse in Vienna’s Hietzing district. It shows Klimt at the age of 55, a year before his death, and is thus seen as one of the last portraits of the painter. The photograph is dedicated to Johanna Staude (widowed Widlicka,1883–1967) by Klimt in his handwriting. In the same year Staude modelled for Klimt. The well known bust portrait remained unfinished and is now in the Belvedere. According to Johanna Staude she not only modelled for Klimt, the Viennese also posed for Egon Schiele. In the address book of Vienna she was listed as a painter, although to this day non of her works are known. John Collins assumes that it was Klimt who introduced Johanna Staude to the writer Peter Altenberg, in whose household she later worked. Peter Altenberg, who also dedicated a photograph to her (see lot 4), called her a »modern angel«. In any case, she was modern, as documented by Klimt’s portrait, which shows her with a short hairstyle and in a blouse made from a fabric by the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshop). Klimt is said to have answered the question as to why he had not finished the painting: »Because then you’d never come to the studio again.« The dedicated photograph is a rare testimony of Klimt’s relationship to one of his models.