Expectation and fulfillment

In 1905, Adolphe Stoclet commissioned a private mansion in Brussels. Josef Hoffmann designed the home and its garden, and the many artists and friends of the Wiener Werkstätte decorated all of the rooms. The end result was a true synthesis of the arts, an exquisitely realized environment whose residents would carefully dress so as to complement their surroundings. But it was the contribution of Gustav Klimt that would become the Stoclet Palace's most famous component: a three-part mosaic frieze for the dining room, consisting of 15 separate components inlaid with gold, enamel and semi-precious stones. On the occasion of the recent completion of the frieze's restoration--the only one of Klimt's murals that survived the aerial bombardments of World War II--this publication examines Klimt's methods and compares his instructions with the work's execution.