Gustav Klimt - Expectation, Stoclet Frieze Button

Tree of Life, Stoclet Frieze - Expectation (Die Erwartung / Tänzerin), created in 1911 in mixed media on tracing paper by Austrian Symbolist Gustav Klimt. The standing female figure, often called the dancer or Expectation, wears a sharply patterned garment and adopts a stylized profile pose beside the spiraling Tree of Life. This full-scale working drawing formed part of Klimt's design for the dining-room frieze of the Palais Stoclet in Brussels. He developed the decoration as a highly abstract, two-dimensional union of figure, nature and ornament, drawing on a wide range of historical and decorative sources. The final mosaic translated Klimt's paper design into costly materials including glass, ceramic, metal and mother-of-pearl.