What the painting shows

Water Serpents I by Klimt is a vertical mixed-media work created between 1904 and 1907, depicting two embracing water nymphs against a shimmering underwater field. Klimt executed the composition on a tall, narrow sheet of parchment measuring 50 by 20 centimeters. Semi-translucent parchment provides the base for pencil strokes, fluid glazes, thick paint, and applied gold and silver foil.

Two nude women float together in the upper half of the composition. The woman on the left turns toward you, resting the side of her head against her companion. Her eyes are closed, her mouth is slightly open, and her right breast remains visible. Her left arm wraps around her partner’s shoulder, extending her little finger outward, while her right arm bends sharply at ninety degrees to leave an open space along her flank. The second woman turns her back to you, showing her pale shoulders and thick blonde hair that cascades downward.

Beneath their torsos, their bodies lose their human contours. From the waist down, the figures dissolve into repeating geometric shapes, speckled scales, and pale spirals. Long trails of green ivy drift over their hair and shoulders, while golden vines rise through the dark current along the left side.

At the bottom right, an aquatic creature with a rounded brown head and sharp white teeth peers forward with a cloudy, blind eye. Just above this fish, a pale octopus tentacle curls into a tight spiral against a patterned field of rings and checkerboard textures. Another tentacle curves near the upper edge. The background behind the figures shifts between flat gold foil, deep charcoal tones, and soft brown patterns.

The story behind it

Klimt began testing this arrangement as early as 1903, publishing an early study in the Vienna Secession magazine Ver Sacrum. He produced numerous pencil studies of single and paired female nudes, comparing a double profile view against a frontal view before choosing the frontal layout. During the same period, he worked concurrently on the companion painting Water Serpents II.

Water serpents and floating aquatic figures appear repeatedly in Klimt’s work from this era. This piece stands as one of his key allegories, following earlier aquatic compositions such as Fischblut, Moving Water, and Goldfish. Klimt placed these mythical water creatures outside normal reality, using the setting to explore human intimacy and physical longing.

The work belongs squarely to Klimt’s celebrated gold period. His use of metallic leaf expanded rapidly following his 1903 journey to Ravenna and Venice, where early Christian church mosaics caught his attention. He adapted those antique mosaic techniques to contemporary subjects, combining them with ideas drawn from Minoan decoration, Egyptian wall paintings, medieval Italian panels, and Japanese Edo-period painting. Klimt also devised the painting’s custom presentation, enclosing the parchment in a dark wooden frame adorned with chased silver fittings.

Art historians offer various perspectives on the figures. Many scholars read the frontal woman’s parted lips and curved fingers as expressions of sexual arousal and physical satisfaction. Historian Frank Whitford saw the painting as an erotic fantasy portraying female intimacy. Cassidy Hughes highlighted how Klimt rendered women in passive, trancelike states. Neda Bei noted that the reaching octopus tentacles echo Japanese erotic art, specifically Hokusai’s well-known woodcut The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife. Other scholars, including Novotny and Dobai, pointed out parallels to Franz von Stuck’s painting Sin and Carl Strathmann’s Salambo. The work also left a direct impression on younger Austrian artists, shaping Egon Schiele’s painting Water Sprites.

Where to see it

You can see Water Serpents I in Vienna at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere. The Belvedere houses an extensive selection of the artist’s work, making it a primary destination for travelers seeking where to see Klimt paintings.

The painting has a documented exhibition history in Austria and abroad. Galerie Miethke first presented it to the public in Vienna in 1907, listing it for five thousand gulden. Industrialist Karl Wittgenstein purchased the piece from Miethke, adding it to his private art collection. The work later joined the holdings of Galerie Neumann before entering the Belvedere’s permanent collection in 1950.

Because parchment naturally reacts to moisture and changes in air humidity, the delicate surface experienced severe warping over the decades. In 1973, restorer Otto Wächter carried out extensive conservation work on the support at the Belvedere. Today, the painting remains in Vienna, preserved in the original dark silver-fitted frame that Klimt created for it.