Adele Bloch-Bauer (1881–1925) was a key player in Vienna’s social elite who supported women’s suffrage as well as artistic and social reform. As a salon hostess, she brought together artists, theorists, and politicians alike, including the composers Alma Mahler and Richard Strauss and the writer Stefan Zweig, to share and debate avant-garde ideas. She regularly purchased objects to integrate into her home and fashions for her wardrobe (including the dress she is photographed wearing nearby), which became central fixtures of the salon environment. Bloch-Bauer is also well known as a sitter for Klimt, from whom she and her husband, Ferdinand, commissioned numerous works. This study was made in preparation for the artist’s first portrait of her, known colloquially as Klimt’s “Woman in Gold.” With loose and willowy lines, Klimt depicts Bloch-Bauer’s reform-style dress and slim figure, emphasizing her embodiment of new approaches to femininity.