Italian High Renaissance

The Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna openend to the public in 1891. Gustav Klimt, his younger brother Ernst, and Franz Matsch executed forty paintings to decorate the spaces between the columns and above the arcades along the walls of the KHM’s main staircase. Personifications – either male and female, or female only – symbolize different stylistic periods, regions or centers of art. All paintings were executed in oil on canvas in the Artists’ studio; in 1891, six months before the formal opening of the museum, they were glued to the walls of the main staircase. The lute player is inspired by “Bella” representations, of which Titian’s Violante (c. 1510/15; Inv. No. 65) and Palma Vecchio’s Young Woman in Blue Gown (c. 1512/14; Inv. No. 63) in the Picture Gallery are examples. In the spandrel on the right, a young man stands in the parade armour of the Duke of Parma, Alessandro Farnese, which was crafted in the workshop of Lucio Piccinino (c. 1578/79; KHM, Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer, Inv. No. A 1132). For further Information on the building see: Cäcilia Bischoff, The Kunsthistorisches Museum. History, Architecture, Decoration, Vienna 2010