Georg Klimt’s Pallas Athena

The Youngest Goddess of the Wiener Moderne

Abstract

Georg Klimt (1867–1931) was one of Gustav Klimt’s younger brothers and a notable creator of repoussé metalwork. Examples of this work include the frames for well-known paintings by Gustav Klimt—such as Pallas Athena from 1898 and Judith 1 from 1901—as well as the doors of the Secession Building designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich. The artist repeatedly employs the motifs of wistful or dreamlike girls and young women, decoratively enhanced with jewels and using playful contours in a soft Jugendstil manner. This article presents a previously unpublished, signed example of Georg Klimt’s repoussé metalwork: a depiction of Pallas Athena as a notably youthful goddess in a tondo with a diameter of around 36.5 centimeters. This was created in the context of a number of other representations of Pallas Athena or Minerva being placed on Vienna’s Ringstrasse, as well as works by Gustav Klimt and specific pieces by Franz von Stuck. In terms of both motif and style, comparisons with these representations underline the quality of this work and suggest that it was created between 1893 and 1898.