Sonja,

                                from my Klimt series, a range based on the portraits of elaborately dressed Austrian society women by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918).  Sonja Knips, married to the tycoon Anton Knips, was painted in 1898.  She wears an elaborate pink dress and these pink shoes are my interpretation of the equally elaborate shoes I have imagined hidden under her skirts, with the rosettes echoing the ruffles at neck, shoulders and wrists. The deep mottled purple on the braiding and back of the shoe alludes to the background of the painting.  The shape of the shoe is based on those made by the Italian shoemaker Pietro Yantorny (1874-1936), the self-proclaimed "most expensive shoemaker in the world" who created shoes only for the wealthiest women.