Overview
- Daily guided climbs on temporary scaffolding let the public view Gustav Klimt’s ten ceiling paintings up close during active conservation at Vienna’s Burgtheater, drawing hundreds of visitors.
- Conservators are removing grime by hand with fine cotton swabs and condensed water, a slow process on canvases that reach about 35 square meters and hang roughly 18 meters above the floor.
- The Burgtheater says it is funding the project with several hundred thousand euros to preserve the original paint layers.
- The special tours run each day through August, when the scaffolding will be taken down, and standard tickets cost 25 euros on the theater’s website, with current reservations sold out.
- Painted in 1886–1888 with Ernst Klimt and Franz Matsch in Klimt’s first major commission, the cycle includes a Queen Elizabeth I scene that contains the artist’s only known self-portrait.