Portrait of Adele Block Bauer

A Viennese society woman emerges from a dazzling field of gold and silver leaf, swirling ornament, and geometric eyes, only her pale face and clasped hands rendered naturalistically amid the shimmering abstraction. Gustav Klimt lavished his 'golden style' on this portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, fusing Byzantine splendor with Art Nouveau. Now in the Neue Galerie in New York, the 'Woman in Gold' is his most famous portrait - later seized by the Nazis, the subject of a long restitution battle, and finally sold for a record price, its glittering surface as celebrated as its dramatic history.