 In December 1903, along with fellow artist Maximilian Lenz, Klimt visited the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna where he studied the early-Christian Byzantine gold mosaics of Justinian I and his wife, Empress Theodora.Lenz later wrote that "the mosaics made an immense decisive impression on ... [Klimt].From this comes the resplendence, the stiff decoration of his art".