The Netherlands and 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. A cavalier in bearing and dress apparently borrowed from the paintings of Frans
Hals (1582/83–1666) occupies the spandrel. His weapon is a rapier of Spanish provenience, and is possibly based on a group of similar type in the museum’s Collection of Arms and Armour. Analogous to the motif in the preceding group, stands a page, here however, he appears in “Florentine dress”. Behind the figure, a wedding casket may be seen, upon which rests a Majolica vase. The elegantly attired servant is shown taking a few flowers from the vase. For further Information on the building see: Cäcilia Bischoff, The Kunsthistorisches Museum. History, Architecture, Decoration, Vienna 2010