Klimt Ria Munk Pendant

DESIGNER'S NOTES

This classic silver plated pendant features an element of the painting Frauenbildnis (1918) by the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt.

This third unfinished Portrait of Ria Munk reveals Klimt’s confrontation with mortality and emotional ambiguity. In this version, the figure hovers between presence and dissolution, her delicate features and partially rendered body suggesting fragility and impermanence.

Textural ornamentation, with fragments of gold and decorative patterns, floats around her, hinting at both protection and isolation. Klimt’s incomplete handling amplifies psychological tension, leaving her suspended in a liminal space between life and symbolic afterlife.

The unfinished quality mirrors Vienna’s collective anxiety over youth, death, and social upheaval during World War I. Subtle visual echoes of spirals and floral motifs reinforce cyclical time and ephemeral beauty, making the work a meditation on fragility, memory, and the unresolved.

STYLING

The pendant is a few centimetres in diameter with a 450mm chain, so style outside high necklines, or against the skin with lower necklines. Wear with jewellery of similar scale, such as a simple silver bracelet.