Gustav Klimt:
Seated Lady with Hat in Half Profile from the Left (Sitzende Dame mit Hut im Halbprofil von links), 1907/08
Red and blue crayon on Japanese paper
54.7 × 34.7 cm
© Leopold Museum, Vienna
(Strobl s1918)

This drawing belongs to the years in which Klimt’s portrait studies take on a new immediacy and softness, shaped by his growing fascination with the expressive possibilities of colored crayon on delicate Japanese paper. The seated woman is shown in left half profile, her body turned slightly away while her face remains gently accessible. The hat, broad and lightly indicated, frames her head with a quiet elegance, giving the figure a composed, almost contemplative presence. She belongs to the group of fashionably dressed, self‑possessed women who populate Klimt’s portrait practice around 1907/08 — women whose poise and modernity he captured with a mixture of tenderness and restraint.

Klimt’s line here is both economical and tender. The red crayon traces the contours of the face and hands with a warmth that feels almost tactile, while the blue introduces a cool counterpoint, defining the folds of the clothing and the shadowed edges of the figure. The Japanese paper, with its fine, absorbent surface, allows the pigments to settle softly, giving the drawing a luminous delicacy that suits these quiet, exploratory studies. Nothing is forced, nothing overstated; the sheet feels like a moment observed rather than constructed, a brief pause in which the sitter’s personality flickers through the simplest of marks.

The present portrait study may relate to two paintings Klimt executed shortly after this drawing was made. The pose — a woman in left half profile, wearing a fashionable hat and scarf, her gaze directed steadily outward — recalls the composition of The Purple Hat of 1909. Yet the somewhat severe features of the sitter in that painting differ markedly from the softer, more yielding traits of the woman in this sheet. Her face corresponds more closely to the model in Lady with Hat and Feather Boa, painted around 1910, especially in the languid sideways glance from beneath half‑closed lids, a gesture shared by both the painting and this drawing.

Klimt executed the study primarily in red crayon, but he subtly reinforced the area around the eyes with blue, heightening their presence and giving the expression its quiet intensity. This interplay of red and blue crayon is characteristic of Klimt’s drawings from these years and also appears in the studies for Hope II (Vision), where he explored similar combinations of warmth and coolness to shape the emotional register of the face.

What gives the sheet its warmth is the sense of nearness it conveys. The red and blue crayons do not compete; they harmonize, creating a gentle vibration that animates the figure without disturbing her stillness. Klimt’s touch is light, almost affectionate, as though he were tracing the memory of a gesture rather than recording it. In this, the drawing reflects the broader shift in his portrait practice around 1907/08, when he moved toward a more atmospheric, psychologically nuanced understanding of the sitter — less concerned with likeness alone than with the quiet aura that surrounds a person at rest.

Seated Lady with Hat in Half Profile from the Left stands as a testament to Klimt’s ability to evoke character with the most minimal means. With a few strokes of crayon on a luminous sheet of Japanese paper, he captures not only the appearance of a woman seated before him, but the gentle, unspoken atmosphere that surrounds her — a moment of stillness held with extraordinary grace.