Woman in Gold

This magnificent painting by Gustav Klimt has quite an interesting history.  Between 1903 and 1907 Gustav Klimt painted this work, after Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer requested a portrait of his wife, Adele Bloch-Bauer I.  In the early 40's when World War II was starting, the painting was taken from the family.  Maria Altmann was forced to flee to America when the war started, but remembered seeing this painting in her aunt's house while growing up.  She ended up fighting a legal battle against Austria for over a decade to reclaim her painting, which she won in the end.  There was a movie made depicting this legal battle: Woman in Gold.

She took the painting back to America with her, despite the Austrian government offering her a lot of money to keep it in the Belvedere, where another one of Klimt's masterpieces - The Kiss - hangs.  In 2006 Ronald Lauder bought the painting for $135 million, and it is displayed to this day in his Neue Galerie New York.

This 40 x 50cm version of the Klimt masterpiece is a very challenging one with 34 colours.  Each box contains a stretched, printed and numbered canvas, paint, brushes and a page detailing the numbers for an extra reference.