Felix Schumann (1854 - 1879), son

Felix (1854 - 1879) at the age of 18 
Youngest child of Robert and Clara Schumann
Photograph of 1872
Robert SchumannHouse in Zwickau

Felix, born only after his father's committal to the sanatorium of Endenich, was named after their departed friend Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, at the request of his parents. Felix was the artistically most talented Schumann child, but his hopes in the fields of music and literature were opposed not only by his mother's scepticism but also by his poor state of health that prevented him from completing his law studies. His godfather, Johannes Brahms, who was a good friend of all the Schumann children, set some of his poems to music. Felix Schumann deceased at the age of only 25 in Frankfurt where he, critically ill with tuberculosis, spent the last weeks of his life with his mother.

(I.B., translated by Thomas Henninger)