Gustav Klimt:
Female Head, Her Chin Resting in Her Hands (Weiblicher Kopf, das Kinn in die Hände gestützt). Study for the Gorgons from the Beethoven Frieze (1901)
Pencil on brown paper
44.6 × 30.6 cm
© Leopold Museum, Vienna (Strobl s798)

This drawing, made in the summer of 1901, belongs to Gustav Klimt’s concentrated series of preparatory studies for the Beethoven Frieze—a monumental wall cycle created for the Vienna Secession’s Beethoven Exhibition in 1902. The frieze was Klimt’s visual response to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and this particular sketch is thought to relate to the central figure of the three Gorgons in the section titled “Hostile Forces.” In the final composition, the Gorgons appear on the left wall, confronting the armored knight who represents humanity’s struggle against suffering and temptation.

Klimt produced dozens of studies in rapid succession that summer, often shifting between full-figure compositions and intimate facial sketches like this one—each probing a different emotional register. The woman depicted here rests her chin in her hands, her gaze lowered, her features quiet but unresolved. There’s no ornament, no theatrical gesture—just a moment of stillness rendered in pencil on brown paper. The drawing feels immediate, almost private, as if Klimt were searching for something beneath the myth: not a monster, but a mood.

While Klimt created many full-figure studies of the Gorgons—daughters of the giant Typhon, symbols of destructive temptation—this head study belongs to a smaller group of works that approach the figures psychologically. The face here is not stylized or symbolic; it’s introspective, human, and emotionally ambiguous. The lowered gaze and resting hands suggest weariness, contemplation, or quiet defiance. It’s an early sketch, but already emphatic in its emotional direction.

Klimt’s line is light but deliberate. The contours are soft, almost hesitant, as if he were feeling his way into the figure’s inner state. There’s no background to distract, and no color to embellish—just the encounter between artist and subject, held in graphite. The brown paper adds warmth and gravity, grounding the image in material presence.

Compared to the stylized menace of the final Gorgon trio in the frieze, this early study feels quieter, more searching—less symbolic, more human. It offers a glimpse into Klimt’s working process at a moment of intense creative focus. It stands apart from the decorative brilliance often associated with his name, revealing instead a quieter, probing side. Within the larger context of the Beethoven Frieze, it marks a pause—a moment of reflection before the mythic storm.