Gustav Klimt Impurity, c.1902 (detail of Beethoven Frieze)

"The Beethoven-frieze" was a monumental fresco which decorated three walls of the long room to the left of the main entrance of the Secession building. It consisted of six plaster panels, painted in casein colours and decorated with gold and semi precious stones. It was created for the fourteenth Secession Exhibition which ran in Spring 1902. This exhibition was different in that its sole purpose was to honor Max Klinger, an original Secession member, and his monumental sculpture, "Beethoven." This fresco and very large impressive murals and sculptures by Roller, Bohm, Andri and Hoffman, were all destroyed after the exhibition as they were created and intended solely to act as backdrop for the presentation of Klinger's "Beethoven." However much protest saved the Klimt's fresco, and it was left intact until after the 1903 Secession exhibition. Sometime before 1915 it joined many other Klimt works in Lederer's collection. Fortunately, it did not face the tragic fate of most of the Lederer collection in the Nazi burning of the Immendorf Castle in 1945, and in 1972 was acquired by the Austrian nation. The fresco panels are now displayed at the Oesterreichische Galerie in Vienna.