Although works of art that imagined the composer and his friends playing and listening to his music at a Schubertiade constituted a tradition that began in his own lifetime (and will serve as the context for Gustav Klimt's painting Schubert at the Piano, to be discussed in the second volume of this study), the portrait of an individual performing one of his works without its creator's presence, as depicted in the 1846 Viennese cartoon, was an exceptional occurrence before the mid-century. As Schubert's reputation grew, a modest but telling group of visual images appeared that echoed features of his Mädchencharakter. The fact that artists from a variety of countries produced these works is testimony to the popularity of this conception of the composer.

The earliest such example that occurs after the appearance of Kreissle's biography comes from the work of James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), who was born in the United States but spent most of his career in England. It is a uniquely fascinating specimen in that the reference to Schubert's music does not occur in the painting itself. The left-hand border of a gilded picture frame, decorated by Whistler in a floral design, incorporates the opening measures of Schubert's third Moment musical in F Minor (see figure 4.1). The detail has been rotated ninety degrees to the left. As in Vienna during Schubert's lifetime, England discovered the composer's works as much from his shorter piano pieces as from his songs.