Auditorium of the Old Burgtheater
painting by Gustav Klimt
Auditorium of the Old Burgtheater (German: Zuschauerraum im Alten Burgtheater) is an 1888–1889 gouache on paper painting by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt. The work depicts the interior of the old Burgtheater as seen from the stage and was commissioned in 1888 by the Vienna City Council shortly before the theater's demolition and relocation to a new building on the Ringstrasse. Today, the painting is held in the Vienna Museum.
Context
The original Burgtheater was built on Michaelerplatz in 1741. It was demolished in 1888, after its replacement on the Ringstrasse was completed, to make way for the long-planned St. Michael Wing of the Hofburg Palace, originally designed in 1725 by Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach. An October 1888 performance of Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris, marked the end of the old wooden theater, which Viennese audiences had loved despite its abysmal conditions. That same year, Klimt and Franz von Matsch were each commissioned by the City of Vienna to paint the interior of the auditorium before its demolition, to create a record of the building's existence.
Description
In Auditorium of the Old Burgtheater, Klimt depicts the auditorium viewed from the stage, whereas Matsch chose to render the stage from the auditorium. The composition shows a full view of the auditorium, and according to The Art Story, reflects Klimt's early academic style and the influence of Hans Makart.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Auditorium of the Old Burgtheater” is painting by Gustav Klimt. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Auditorium, Burgtheater and painting, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “painting by Gustav Klimt” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q107534436. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1888, 1889, 1741 and 1725.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Auditorium of the Old Burgtheater” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.