Oil painting “Siegfrieds farewell” Friedrich König ca. 1910

Friedrich König is considered one of the defining artists of Viennese Art Nouveau and was among the co-founders of the Vienna Secession. Together with colleagues such as Josef Engelhart, Rudolf Bacher, and Maximilian Lenz, he helped shape a distinct artistic direction within the movement around 1900. His work combines the decorative elegance of Art Nouveau with the poetic imagery of Symbolism.

The monumental painting “Siegfried’s Farewell” (c. 1910) is among the most impressive works of this creative phase and can rightly be described as a masterpiece. The scene depicts the hero Siegfried on his horse Grane at the moment of his farewell to Brünnhilde, accompanied by female figures who can be interpreted as Valkyries.

Through the combination of a mythological subject, calm figure composition, and decorative coloration, Friedrich König creates a visual world that links the epic atmosphere of the Nibelungen saga with the poetic symbolic language of Viennese Art Nouveau. The depiction is also closely connected to the ubiquitous reception of Richard Wagner’s opera cycle “Der Ring des Nibelungen” around 1900.

The painting is signed and bears an exhibition label from the Munich Secession on the reverse, as well as a label from the renowned Modern Gallery Heinrich Thannhauser in Munich, through which the work was once sold. According to the catalogs of the Munich Secession, König exhibited in Munich only in 1912. It is therefore very likely that Thannhauser acquired the painting for his exhibition that year.

Works by Friedrich König are currently held in the Belvedere, the Wien Museum, and the Leopold Museum, as well as in numerous international collections such as the Musée d’Orsay and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.