A striking etched portrait of the famed Austrian composer Hugo Wolf by noted Austrian artist Ferdinand Schmutzer, signed and dated by the artist at the lower right and nicely presented in a double mat. Wolf is shown seated in a dark suit with his hands clasped upon his knee.

Hugo Wolf's music bridged the divide between late Romanticism and the early days of the Second Viennese School. He is best remembered today for his Lieder, which use tonality, wandering harmonic progressions, and chromaticism to depict complex themes in the song texts.

Ferdinand Schmutzer (1870-1928) was among Vienna's most important early-twentieth-century portraitists. His innovative etchings, which were significantly larger than was typical for the time, won him international attention and acclaim. Indeed, his famed 1904 portrait of the Joachim Quartet, using his updated manière noire technique, was the largest etching of its kind ever produced at the time or possibly ever since.