🖼 About this piece
Mäda Primavesi was immortalised in this portrait when she was just nine years old. Wearing white, Klimt deliberately draws you to her confident gaze — Mäda demands to be noticed and heard.
Mäda Primavesi is painted at an interesting time — artistically and historically. 1912 puts this painting at the crossroads between Art Nouveau and Art Deco, and in the last few years of peace before WWI.
Looking back, perhaps we see that soon-to-vanish innocence in Mäda’s eyes too — made more poignant as we now know the dark days of war that were just around the corner. For all these reasons, Mäda Primavesi is a beautiful and accomplished study of the last days of childhood and a requiem to a world that would soon vanish.
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