With his outstanding narrative ability, Spitzweg succeeded in playing with the viewer's expectations. This is also the case in our serenade: In the winding secrecy of the shadowed architecture, sparsely lit by moonlight and obscured by walls and bay windows, the enamored musician, a young student perhaps, has placed himself on the village square with the quietly splashing fountain. Once there, he realizes that another admirer has probably already beaten him to his beloved, as can be seen dimly in the illuminated window. The viewers watch the duped man as he comes to terms with his own disappointment. With humor, however, it is possible to endure this disillusionment between the ideal and reality of the rapturous figures of Romanticism and the Biedermeier period and even to gain something positive from it. The motif of the enamored musician appeared early on in Spitzweg's work in the form of the rooftop violinist, initially with similarities to the physiognomy of the artist himself, and occupied him with numerous imaginative variations and exaggerations until the 1870s. In 1848, he noted the observation of one such scene in his diary: "Nightly violinist seen - as once! - Long shadows - points of light on the wall" (Wichmann 2002, p. 180). At times Spitzweg himself lived above the rooftops of Munich and may have witnessed some of these musical approaches. They also reflect Spitzweg's interest in music and theater. One of the best-known variations on the motif is the version of the "Spanish Serenade" from 1856 (Bavarian State Painting Collections, Schack Collection, Munich), in which Spitzweg probably depicted the opening scene of the opera "The Barber of Seville" - where Count Almaviva appears with a group of musicians under the balcony of his beloved Rosina. Impressed by theater and opera, Spitzweg made their staging and dramatic principles his own in his paintings. Spitzweg's nephews by marriage were members and important soloists of the Bavarian court orchestra, led by his uncle Joseph Moralt, who took part in the orchestra for a performance of this very opera. The serenade can be considered a popular and personal motif of Spitzweg's, which is depicted here in the silvery blue tones of moonlit towns under a starry sky that are so characteristic of his night pieces. [KT]