It was presumably in 1911 that Gustav Klimt met young Consuela Camilla Huber in Vienna. They began an affair that lasted for several years. Their two sons and their daughter were born between 1912 and 1915. After Klimt’s death in February 1918, the children received a financial compensation.

Modern research has little to go on with regard to the relationship of Gustav Klimt and Consuela Camilla Huber, called Ella. There is no surviving correspondence between the artist and the young woman. According to her relatives, she probably destroyed any existing correspondence herself.

Gustav Klimt presumably met Consuela Camilla Huber for the first time in Vienna in 1911. She was born in Vienna on 25 October 1896 and raised in humble circumstances. Their first child Gustav was born only one year after their first encounter. Their daughter Charlotte was born in April 1914, but died in January 1915. Their second son Wilhelm was born in September 1915. According to the baptismal registers, Consuela Huber and her children then lived at Obermüllnerstraße 9 in what is now the 2nd District of Vienna.

Just like Maria Ucicka and Marie Zimmermann, Consuela Huber also received regular payments from Gustav Klimt to support herself and her children – these payments were delivered personally, by mail, by messenger or via a lawyer.

After Klimt’s Death
As guardian or her two sons, Consuela Camilla Huber received a compensation in the form of a single payment in the year of Klimt’s death; in return she waived the right to any regular support payments for her children. This is revealed by a personal letter dated 29 October 1919. In this letter, the Viennese lawyer Dr. Otto Kiebacher informed Klimt’s lover Marie Zimmermann – who was trying to assert claims on behalf of her son Gustav – that: 

“[…] the guardian of two Huber children of the tenderest age (6 years and 2 ½ years) accepted the sum of 10,000 crowns for each of these two children to compensate for their long-term claims for alimony and support with the approval of the court last year […]”

There is not much more official information to be found about the lives of the Hubers. Consuela Camilla Huber entered into a civil marriage in 1939 and married in church in 1971. She died aged 81 in September 1978. Her eldest son died in Vienna in April 1989; her younger son Wilhelm lost his life as a soldier in World War II.