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A baby nestles in a mass of frilly white fabric atop a colorful patchwork, perhaps a pile of quilts, against a sage and spring-green background in this square painting. The baby’s face and right hand peeks out from the mountain of fabric at the top center of the composition. The infant has ash-white skin with pink cheeks and lips, and looks down toward us with large dark eyes. The pile of fabric creates a mosaic-like mix of pattern and color with vibrant royal and baby blue, sage green, turquoise, butter yellow, and shell and salmon pink. Some patterns are outlined in black while brushstrokes swirl together in other areas. The background is mottled with cool mint and asparagus-green strokes against pale beige.

Gustav Klimt

Baby (Cradle), 1917/1918

East Building, Upper Level — Gallery 415-A

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 110.9 x 110.4 cm (43 11/16 x 43 7/16 in.)

framed: 116.21 x 115.89 x 6.67 cm (45 3/4 x 45 5/8 x 2 5/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Otto and Franziska Kallir with the help of the Carol and Edwin Gaines Fullinwider Fund

Accession Number

1978.41.1

Artists / Makers

Gustav Klimt (artist) Austrian, 1862 - 1918

Image Use

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Provenance

(Galerie Nebehay, Vienna); sold 1919 to Otto [d. 1926] and Eugenia Primavesi, Vienna;[1] acquired 1928 with other paintings from Eugenia Primavesi by Hugo or Otto Bernatzig (or Bernatzik), Vienna. Brought to the United States by Josef Urban [1872-1933], New York.[2] (Galérie St. Etienne, New York), possibly by 1959;[3] Otto [1894-1978] and Franziska [1899-1992] Kallir, New York; acquired 1978 through gift and purchase by NGA.

[1] According to Tobias G. Natter, cited in Klimt, Schiele, Moser, Kokoschka. Vienne 1900, Exh. cat., Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 2005-2006: unnumbered catalogue. The name Sigmund Primavesi that is listed in the painting's provenance in the 1965 Guggenheim exhibition catalogue is probably an error.

[2] According to Jane Kallir, Saved from Europe: Otto Kallir and the History of the Galerie St. Etienne, Exh. cat., Galerie St. Etienne, New York, 1999: pl. 16.

[3] The Galerie St. Etienne, whose owners were Otto and Franziska Kallir, included the painting in its 1959 Klimt exhibition. Mrs. Josef Urban was listed in the catalogue as a lender, but which painting(s) she lent is not specified, so it is possible she had inherited the painting from her husband and still owned it in 1959.

Associated Names

Bernatzig, Hugo
Kallir, Otto
Kallir, Otto, Mrs.
Nebehay, Gustav, Kunsthandlung
Primavesi, Otto and Eugenia
Urban, Joseph

Exhibition History

1917: Österrikisk Konstutställning, Liljevalchs Konsthall, Stockholm, September 1917.

1919: Galerie Nebehay, Vienna, 1919.

1920: Kunstschau, Vienna, 1920, Room IX, no. 48, repro.

1927: Ausstellung Oesterr. Kunst in den Niederlanden, 1927-1928, no. 14 (according to label removed from stretcher).

1928: Gedächtnis-Ausstellung Gustav Klimt, Wiener Secession, Vienna, 1928, no. 72.

1959: Gustav Klimt, Galerie St. Etienne, New York, 1959, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1964: Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Exhibition, Galerie St. Etienne, New York, 1964, no. 15, repro.

1965: Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1965, no. 24, repro.

1978: Aspects of Twentieth-Century Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1978-1979, no. 57, repro.

1985: Traum und Wirklichkeit--Wien 1870-1930, Kunstlerhaus Wien, Vienna, 1985, no. 15/5/26.

1987: Gustav Klimt, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, 1987, no. 37, repro.

1989: Gustav Klimt: Drawings, Nassau County Museum of Fine Art, Roslyn, New York, 1989, not in catalogue.

1991: Gustav Klimt, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 1991-1992, no. 37, repro.

1992: Gustav Klimt, Kunsthaus Zürich, 1992, no. G59, repro.

1999: Saved from Europe: Otto Kallir and the History of the Galerie St. Etienne, Galerie St. Etienne, New York, 1999-2000, pl. 16.

2000: Art Nouveau, 1890-1914, Victoria and Albert Museum, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, 2000-2001, no. 277 (shown only in Washington).

2001: Gustave Klimt: Modernism in the Making, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2001, no. 34, repro.

2005: Klimt, Schiele, Moser, Kokoschka. Vienne 1900, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 2005-2006, unnumbered catalogue, repro., as Bébé (Berceau).

2008: Gustave Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life, Tate Gallery, Liverpool, 2008, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 171.

2009: Gustave Klimt. In Search of the "Total Artwork", Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Center, 2009, no. 33, repro.

2011: Vienna: Art & Design - Klimt, Schiele, Hoffmann, Loos, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2011, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2012: Klimt's Golden Rider and Vienna: Celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Klimt's Birth, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya; Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum, Nagasaki City; Utsunomiya Museum of Art, 2012-2013, no. 208, repro.

2015: Collection Conversations: The Chrysler and the National Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, 2015, no catalogue.

2017: KLIMT & RODIN: An Artistic Encounter, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honor, 2017-2018, no. 29, repro.

2019: Gustav Klimt: Vienna - Japan 1900, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum; Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, 2019, no. 61, repro.

2019: The Expressionist Legacy, Galerie St. Etienne, New York, 2019 - 2020, no. 23.

Bibliography

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 616, no. 951, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 216, repro.

1989: Strick, Jeremy. Twentieth Century Painting and Sculpture: Selections for the Tenth Anniversary of the East Building. Washington, D.C., 1989: repro. 32, 33.

1997: Southgate, M. Therese. The Art of JAMA: One Hundred Covers and Essays from The Journal of the American Medical Association. St. Louis, 1997: 100-101, color repro.

2000: Art Nouveau, 1890-1914. Exh. cat. Victoria & Albert Museum, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. London, 2000: no. 277.

2012: Clegg, Elizabeth. "War and peace at the Stockholm 'Austrian Art Exhibition' of 1917." The Burlington Magazine CLIV (October 2012): 686, repro.