About this work
The composition presents two reclining female figures intertwined within a dense, undulating landscape, its horizontal format emphasising their languid posture and the unbroken flow of the surrounding environment.
Two figures appear in the foreground in full nudity, while two more emerge in the upper right corner, only their heads visible.
Female nudes glide past the observer with a dream-like gaze, their red, nymph-like hair flecked with magically shimmering floral creatures.
The palette is rich with blues, purples, yellows, and gold, creating a harmonious and luxurious effect central to the Art Nouveau aesthetic.
The figures are rendered with a pale, almost ethereal quality that contrasts sharply with the vibrant tapestry of flora enveloping them — depicted not as discrete individuals but as integral components of their natural setting, their bodies merging seamlessly with the surrounding vegetation.
The painting was begun in 1904 and finished in either 1906 or 1907, placing it squarely at the height of Klimt's Golden Phase, alongside *The Kiss* and *Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I*. It was the last in a series of works — including *Moving Water* (1898), *Medicine* (1901), *Goldfish* (1902), and *Water Serpents I* (1904) — that all featured water nymphs as their subjects.
The unambiguously intimate embrace of his figures would perhaps have been unacceptable presented as a straight portrait; by giving the work an allegorical theme and adorning every surface with gold and pattern, Klimt was able to show the painting to Vienna without fear of censorship.
The painting, and its charged subject matter, is seen as a precursor to later works such as *Women Friends* (1917), which displayed such relationships more openly. Its provenance is as dramatic as the canvas itself: after the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, *Water Serpents II* was confiscated from its Jewish owner Jenny Steiner, passing into the hands of Nazi filmmaker Gustav Ucicky, rumoured to be one of Klimt's illegitimate children.
This is a painting for rooms that earn silence — a dark, considered library, a bedroom with low evening light, a living space that prizes sensuality over spectacle. The figures are rendered with a softness that contrasts with vibrant patterning, highlighting Klimt's ability to weave the human form with abstract decorative elements seamlessly, which means the longer you look, the more the composition reveals. It speaks to a viewer drawn to work with psychological depth beneath decorative beauty — someone
