GUSTAV KLIMT (1862-1918)

Study of a Woman for 'Jurisprudence' is a study for the famed painting by the artist, Jurisprudence, which joined with the works Philosophy and Medicine, comprised monumental panels depicting the three teachings at Vienna's Academy. Ordered by the Austrian government in 1894 to decorate the University of Vienna's entrance hall, these works were later destroyed by a fire caused by the Nazis in 1945. Today only studies and archival photographs of the paintings survive.

The present work is a study representing the personification of Law; the character holds in her hands a Common Law book, with the Latin word LEX written on the cover.