What the painting shows

Schubert at the Piano II by Klimt depicts Austrian musician and composer Franz Schubert playing a glossy piano during an intimate drawing-room performance. Schubert sits off-center on the left in profile, his fingers curved over the keyboard and his gaze directed forward toward his sheet music. Bathed in warm candlelight from candles resting directly on the piano, Schubert wears a dark jacket and a white-collared shirt. Klimt rendered the dark coat smoothly without coarse brushstrokes, isolating the composer’s profile from the flickering textures surrounding him.

To the left of Schubert, a woman sits beside the instrument and stares straight out at the viewer. She wears a high, white-collared dress decorated with rosy floral patterns formed by vivid, legible brush marks. Behind her right shoulder, a man is visible deep in the background. Standing to the right of Schubert are two women clutching sheet music, positioned in receding depth. The closest woman wears an ample white dress, while the woman behind her wears red. Each standing woman wears a flower at her throat matching the color of her gown, with hair gathered at the base of the neck. Further back, a second male figure stands obscured in shadow, wearing a black jacket and white dress shirt.

All the figures feature soft, blended facial features that contrast sharply with their textured garments. Some sources note that the clothing looks anachronistic, matching the fashions of Klimt’s 1890s Vienna rather than Schubert’s early nineteenth-century era. To the far right, a pale square mantle with visible paint marks catches the glow of another candle resting on its shelf. The entire scene glows with soft, golden light, rendered through the flowing lines and organic rhythms characteristic of Art Nouveau.

The story behind it

Klimt completed this oil canvas in 1899, measuring 150 by 200 centimeters. Greek industrialist Nikolaus Dumba may have commissioned the project in 1898. During this period, Klimt drew inspiration from Friedrich Nietzsche’s book The Birth of Tragedy, specifically its theory that musical sound reaches deep recesses of the human mind. Klimt explored this psychological connection in musical themes, including Schubert at the Piano II and his work Music II.

The painting entered the notable collection of Jewish factory owner August Lederer and his family, who also owned Music II. Klimt used real models from his inner circle; some claim the seated woman beside Schubert is Marie Zimmerman, Klimt’s mistress who gave birth to two of his sons. While rooted in historical portraiture, the painting connects to Klimt’s symbolic work categorized under allegories. It stands among the major compositions cataloged in overviews of every Klimt painting from the late 1890s.

What happened to it

Schubert at the Piano II no longer exists. In 1938, the Nazi regime seized the entire Lederer art collection. The Third Reich displayed Lederer-owned works in a major 1943 Klimt retrospective in Vienna before transporting them for safekeeping to Schloss Immendorf, a castle in Lower Austria. Thirteen Klimt canvases were gathered inside the estate during the final stages of the Second World War.

In May 1945, retreating SS troops detonated explosives inside Schloss Immendorf. The resulting blaze engulfed the building and consumed the entire collection. Eyewitness reports stated that not a single piece of stored artwork survived the fire. Today, Schubert at the Piano II is known only through photographic documentation made before the castle’s destruction.