Gustav Klimt - Garden Path with Chickens

Garden Path with Chickens, painted in 1916 in oil on canvas by Austrian Symbolist Gustav Klimt. Two chickens wander along a garden path framed by tall flowering plants and dense vegetation, leading toward a small retreat deeper in the scene. Klimt treats the motif with unusual humour while using dark contours to organize bright patches of flowers, foliage and path into a decorative late style. Human figures are absent, yet the path and garden structure imply a quiet inhabited space. The painting later belonged to August and Serena Lederer, whose collection was seized after Austria's annexation by Germany, and it was among the Klimt works destroyed in the fire at Immendorf Castle in May 1945.