The Lady in Gold
The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, 'Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer'
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Narrated by:
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Coleen Marlo
About this listen
"The Lady in Gold", a portrait considered an unforgettable masterpiece, one of the 20th century's most recognizable paintings, made headlines all over the world when Ronald Lauder bought it for $135 million a century after Klimt, the most famous Austrian painter of his time, completed the society portrait.
Anne-Marie O'Connor, writer for the Washington Post, formerly of the Los Angeles Times, tells the galvanizing story of the Lady in Gold, Adele Bloch-Bauer, a dazzling Viennese Jewish society figure; daughter of the head of one of the largest banks in the Hapsburg Empire, head of the Oriental Railway, whose Orient Express went from Berlin to Constantinople; wife of Ferdinand Bauer, sugar-beet baron.
The Bloch-Bauers were art patrons, and Adele herself was considered a rebel of fin de siècle Vienna (she wanted to be educated, a notion considered “degenerate” in a society that believed women being out in the world went against their feminine "nature"). The author describes how Adele inspired the portrait and how Klimt made more than a hundred sketches of her - simple pencil drawings on thin manila paper.
And O'Connor writes of Klimt himself, son of a failed gold engraver, shunned by arts bureaucrats, called an artistic heretic in his time, a genius in ours. She writes of the Nazis confiscating the portrait of Adele from the Bloch-Bauers' grand palais; of the Austrian government putting the painting on display, stripping Adele's Jewish surname from it so that no clues to her identity (nor any hint of her Jewish origins) would be revealed. Nazi officials called the painting, "The Lady in Gold" and proudly exhibited it in Vienna's Baroque Belvedere Palace, consecrated in the 1930s as a Nazi institution.
The author writes of the painting, inspired by the Byzantine mosaics Klimt had studied in Italy, with their exotic symbols and swirls, the subject an idol in a golden shrine. We see how, 60 years after it was stolen by the Nazis, the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer became the subject of a decade-long litigation between the Austrian government and the Bloch-Bauer heirs, how and why the U.S. Supreme Court became involved in the case, and how the Court's decision had profound ramifications in the art world.
In this book listeners will find riveting social history; an illuminating and haunting look at turn-of-the-century Vienna; a brilliant portrait of the evolution of a painter; a masterfully told tale of suspense. And at the heart of it, The Lady in Gold - the shimmering painting, and its equally irresistible subject, the fate of each forever intertwined.
©2012 Anne-Marie O'Connor (P)2012 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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- By: Upton Sinclair
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Lanning “Lanny” Budd spends his first 13 years in Europe, living at the center of his mother’s glamourous circle of friends on the French Riviera. In 1913, he enters a prestigious Swiss boarding school and befriends Rick, an English boy, and Kurt, a German. The three schoolmates are privileged, happy, and precocious - but their world is about to come to an abrupt and violent end. When the gathering storm clouds of war finally burst, raining chaos and death over the continent, Lanny must put the innocence of youth behind him.
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didn't finish
- By Bird Miller on 05-08-22
By: Upton Sinclair
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Istanbul
- Memories and the City
- By: Orhan Pamuk
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share.
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Terrible pronunciation
- By K. Jaynes on 02-25-18
By: Orhan Pamuk
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Les Parisiennes
- How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved, and Died Under Nazi Occupation
- By: Anne Sebba
- Narrated by: Polly Stone
- Length: 16 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Paris in the 1940s was a place of fear, power, aggression, courage, deprivation, and secrets. During the occupation, the swastika flew from the Eiffel Tower and danger lurked on every corner. While Parisian men were either fighting at the front or captured and forced to work in German factories, the women of Paris were left behind where they would come face to face with the German conquerors on a daily basis, as waitresses, shop assistants, or wives and mothers, increasingly desperate to find food to feed their families as hunger became part of everyday life.
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An Excellent Historical Perspective
- By Lulu on 10-28-16
By: Anne Sebba
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Lara
- The Untold Love Story and the Inspiration for Doctor Zhivago
- By: Anna Pasternak
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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When Stalin came into power in 1924, the Communist government began persecuting dissident writers. Though Stalin spared the life of Boris Pasternak - whose novel in progress, Doctor Zhivago, was suspected of being anti-Soviet - he persecuted Boris' mistress, typist, and literary muse, Olga Ivinskaya. Boris' affair with Olga devastated the straitlaced Pasternaks, and they were keen to disavow Olga's role in Boris' writing process.
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A wonderfully enjoyable read
- By gran 80 on 03-15-17
By: Anna Pasternak
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Mata Hari's Last Dance
- A Novel
- By: Michelle Moran
- Narrated by: Zara Ramm
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Paris, 1917. The notorious dancer Mata Hari sits in a cold cell awaiting freedom...or death. Alone and despondent, she is as confused as the rest of the world about the charges she's been arrested on: treason leading to the deaths of thousands of French soldiers. As she waits for her fate to be decided, she relays the story of her life to a reporter who is allowed to visit her in prison.
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Throughly enjoyable
- By scalante on 09-07-16
By: Michelle Moran
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Fortune's Children
- The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt
- By: Arthur T. Vanderbilt II
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Written by descendant Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, Fortune's Children traces the dramatic and amazingly colorful history of this great American family, from the rise of industrialist and philanthropist Cornelius Vanderbilt to the fall of his progeny - wild spendthrifts whose profligacy bankrupted a vast inheritance.
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The Rise and Fall of the Gilded Age
- By Hilary on 10-22-14
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The Sugar King of Havana
- The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon
- By: John Paul Rathbone
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Fifty years after the Cuban revolution, the legendary wealth of the sugar magnate Julio Lobo remains emblematic of a certain way of life that came to an abrupt end when Fidel Castro marched into Havana. Known in his day as the King of Sugar, Lobo was for decades the most powerful force in the world sugar market, controlling vast swaths of the island's sugar interests.
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VERY INFORMATIVE
- By Terry on 03-26-12
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American Ghost
- A Family's Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest
- By: Hannah Nordhaus
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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The dark-eyed woman in the long, black gown was first seen in the 1970s, standing near a fireplace. She was sad and translucent, present and absent at once. Strange things began to happen in the Santa Fe hotel where she was seen. Gas fireplaces turned off and on without anyone touching a switch. Glasses flew off shelves. And in one second-floor suite with a canopy bed and arched windows looking out to the mountains, guests reported alarming events.
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A true American tale
- By Cleo Colorado on 05-29-15
By: Hannah Nordhaus
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Young Stalin
- By: Simon Sebag Montefiore
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Young Stalin tells the story of an exceptional, charismatic, darkly turbulent young man born into obscurity, fancying himself a poet and a priest, and finally embracing revolutionary idealism as his Messianic mission in life. Equal parts scholar and terrorist, a mastermind of bank robberies, extortion, piracy, and murder, he was so impressive in his brutality that Lenin made him, along with Trotsky, his chief henchman.
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Really Good Read/Listen
- By Jim on 02-20-11
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Wild Swans
- Three Daughters of China
- By: Jung Chang
- Narrated by: Joy Osmanski
- Length: 22 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Few books have had such an impact as Wild Swans: a popular best seller which has sold more than 13 million copies and a critically acclaimed history of China; a tragic tale of nightmarish cruelty and an uplifting story of bravery and survival.
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Accurate, moving and chilling
- By David on 12-15-12
By: Jung Chang
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Stalin's Daughter
- The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva
- By: Rosemary Sullivan
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 19 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The award-winning author of Villa Air-Bel returns with a painstakingly researched, revelatory biography of Svetlana Stalin, a woman fated to live her life in the shadow of one of history's most monstrous dictators—her father, Josef Stalin. Born in the early years of the Soviet Union, Svetlana Stalin spent her youth inside the walls of the Kremlin. Communist Party privilege protected her from the mass starvation and purges that haunted Russia, but she did not escape tragedy—the loss of everyone she loved, including her mother, two brothers, aunts and uncles, and a lover twice her age, deliberately exiled to Siberia by her father.
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Insightful and thoroughly researched
- By Jean on 06-16-15
What listeners say about The Lady in Gold
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Christine
- 08-03-15
Compelling and revealing
Brought such new personal dimension to a long and often distressing story of WW 1 & 2 through the experience of art
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- lp285
- 04-26-16
complicated
I felt sad for the families but was disappointed they sold the paintings. might have been easier to read. many characters in story.
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- Goldie
- 07-18-18
Fascinating tragic story of Adele Bloch Bauer
The story of the Lady in Gold is told through the works of Gustav Klimt and the history of the Bloch-Bauer and other prominent Jewish families of Vienna. The book is well written and captured my imagination placing me in 20th century Vienna during WWII and the present. I would recommend the book.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Ellen
- 12-05-18
The history of art and war
The history of this painting is interesting. There are so many people involved that I sometimes lost track of who they all were. The narration seemed a little rushed
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- Kim Hoerster
- 10-20-15
The Lady in Gold
The readers voice was sped up or read so fast it was hard to follow. Voice was good and had a clarity of punctuation in names locations, etc, just to fast.
Story had so many facts it was overwhelming and cumbersome.
Storyline was extremely interesting. I attend many museums around the world. Wish I could go see the paintings in life.
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- Bernadette
- 10-09-15
This is fantastic!
I really love this book. It's just as good as the movie. I look forward to finishing it.
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- gblmia
- 04-26-15
Ansloosch?
I thoroughly enjoyed the well-researched story, but the reader absolutely slaughtered the German words that were frequently included in the text. The reader doesn't have to be fluent in German, but I believe the producers of such an audio book have a responsibility to at least ensure that a world used as often as "Anschluss" is in this book is pronounced properly, that Adolph is not pronounced "Aldoph", etc.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Brenda
- 04-13-15
Q
Yes, I really did appreciate it being a true story. I believe those that are interested in European art history especially middle European art of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Natzi
treatment of the Jews was different than any I had read before. Many many personal stories.
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- Lynn Anderson
- 04-01-15
Historical synopsis of WWII Vienna
Interesting insight on the disposition of renowned Viennese art pieces following WWII. Atrocities and the wars impact on Jewish families are revealed.
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- Julie
- 08-21-15
Terrible narrator for a great book
If you could sum up The Lady in Gold in three words, what would they be?
fascinating, intriguing content
What other book might you compare The Lady in Gold to and why?
The hare with the amber eye -- both books deal with art and war and offer a lot for the imagination.
What didn’t you like about Coleen Marlo’s performance?
She rushed through the narration. With a good narrator, the listener would be able to savor the words. This is a book that sparks the imagination, but the hastily read language does not allow the mind the freedom to explore. It sounded like the narrator is paid by the book, and she read as fast as possible to get through it.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No, I like to savor my books.
Any additional comments?
I would buy this again with a different narrator.
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