Around the turn of the century, the idea of the decorative aspect gained new significance in art. The aestheticism of Art Nouveau took up floral and natural forms and the concept of the ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ led to the connection of all genres, in which architecture and painting also entered into a new connection. Carl von Marr was among great masters such as Hans von Marées, whose wall-filling paintings set new standards for spatial and pictorial design. A repertoire of motifs based on Roman-Pompeian antiquity, which was taken up again in Italian Renaissance, becomes noticeable in the often allegorical, frieze-like scenes. One of Carl von Marr's main works is the design of the large dining room in the Faber-Castell family's Stein Palace near Nuremberg, which he decorated in 1908-11 with a large cycle of the ages of life, which he equated with the seasons. In the large format of the present painting, ethereal nymphs in antique garments walk along the edge of the picture in a paradisiacal garden, where spring is about to enter. A corresponding spring scene in the Stein Palace shows "that Marr has given and will continue to give his highest, best and most unique as a decorative artist [..]. Some people will think of Botticelli's "Primavera" in view of this painting, except that Marr's art is softer, more flattering, more fluid than that of the great Florentine." (Georg Jacob Wolf, Carl von Marr, in: Die Kunst für alle, vol. 26, issue 5, December 1, 1910, p. 100). [KT]