Bertha Müller:
Emilie Flöge playing the mandolin (Emilie Flöge spielt die Mandoline), c. 1895–1905
Pastel on canvas
69.9 × 50.3 cm
Auctioned by Sotheby’s, USD 6,000–8,000 (Estimate), 2011

Emilie Flöge—the Austrian fashion designer, businesswoman, and lifelong companion and muse of painter Gustav Klimt—is depicted here in a private setting, seated with a mandolin against her torso. Her fingers rest just above the strings, capturing the moment before playing. Around 1900, the mandolin was popular among the Viennese bourgeoisie as a symbol of the artistic freedom of the modern woman. Müller chose pastel to achieve a soft rendering where colors blend directly into the background and light spreads evenly across Flöge’s face. Instead of presenting a performance for the viewer, the composition focuses on Flöge looking past the frame in complete concentration.

The dating around the turn of the century aligns with the subject’s youth. Flöge is recognizable here from the photographs taken with Klimt during their summers at the Attersee. Alongside her role as his companion, she was an independent entrepreneur running her haute couture house, the Salon Schwestern Flöge, alongside her sisters Helene and Pauline. This portrait places her outside Klimt’s influence. Müller uses no gold, ornament, or heavy symbolism. By replacing Klimt’s dominant male gaze with the perspective of a female contemporary, the work presents a straightforward view of Flöge as a person rather than a style icon.

Because Bertha Müller (1848–1937) remains largely unknown to modern audiences, placing her within the Vienna art scene is essential. She belonged to a prominent Viennese family of artists; her brother was the celebrated Orientalist painter Leopold Carl Müller, and she shared a studio at the Vienna Academy with her sister, the portraitist Marie Müller, until 1902. While her sister Marie helped found the Acht Künstlerinnen (Eight Female Artists) group to bring visibility to women in art, Bertha focused on high-level academic portraiture, even earning commissions to paint Queen Victoria. Her work broke with rigid academic sharpness by using a softer realism focused on everyday scenes and interiors. In this portrait, her specific approach shows in the structure of the face and the color transitions of the fabric.

The pastel technique underscores the quiet nature of the scene. By omitting sharp contours, Müller grounds the image in immediate, direct observation rather than conceptual artifice. The portrait functions as a factual record of Flöge’s presence, requiring no complex decoding from the viewer.