The rose growing in this garden is a clone of the historic Damask roses that grew in Gustav Klimt’s own garden — at his last studio in Hietzing, Vienna.
When the garden of the Klimt Villa was restored, researchers discovered that two original rose bushes had survived for more than a century. These surviving plants became the source material for recreating the historic rose.
A Preserved Legacy
Viennese rosarian Prof. Herbert Eipeldauer restored the roses of Klimt’s garden not by breeding a new variety, but by rescuing what remained. He located the surviving historic rose bushes, took cuttings from them, grafted these onto hardy wild rootstock, and propagated enough plants to bring the original garden back to life.
The two original bushes are believed to date from around 1900. Remarkably, they survived the later redevelopment of the site and were used directly as mother plants for propagation. Today’s Klimt Villa Roses are genetically identical to the very bushes that bloomed while Klimt worked there — the same living plants, propagated forward through time. Not a modern hybrid bearing his name.
How Do We Know?
The evidence forms a clear, documented chain:
- 1911 Klimt moves into his Feldmühlgasse studio; contemporary photographs and records describe the flower garden there.
- 1912 He paints Rosebushes under the Trees on that same site — the real roses inspired the painting.
- ≈100 years Two original rose bushes survive the redevelopment of the property.
- Restoration Prof. Eipeldauer propagates the survivors through grafting — twenty-two cloned plants replanted to restore the garden.
The restoration recreated the living scene Klimt had once painted — not a garden modeled after the artwork.
What Type of Rose Is It?
A Damask rose — one of Europe’s oldest cultivated rose classes, already centuries old by Klimt’s time. Damasks are known for their very full, intensely fragrant flowers, grey-green foliage, arching shrubs, and typically a single, once-a-year flowering.
