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ONLINECOLLECTION

Black Carriage, c. 1928

Leopold Museum,
Vienna
Watercolor on paper
12.5×17.8 cm

Artists

  • Wilhelm Thöny

    (Graz 1888–1949 New York)

Unfortunately not on display at the moment
A horse-drawn carriage is moving directly towards the beholder between the facade of a house and an avenue of trees. The black horses and coachman dressed in black evoke a funeral coach in the shadows of the trees. The motif, as well as the reduction to only few colors, generate a sense of oppressive gloom. In the 1920s, the painter Wilhelm Thöny (1888–1949) was staying in his birthplace of Graz. Owing to his experiences as a war painter on the frontlines during World War I and his sensitivity to the worrying events taking place over the ensuing years, he developed a proclivity for gloomy scenes. The watery-airy application of watercolors evokes a mixture of gravity and lightness which, in the face of the symbolic presence of death, produces an inner, psychological impact.

Object data

Artist/author
  • Wilhelm Thöny
Title
Black Carriage
Date
c. 1928
Art movement
Classical Modernism, Expressionism
Category
Graphic work
Material​/technique
Watercolor on paper
Dimensions
12.5×17.8 cm
Credit line
Leopold Museum, Vienna, Inv. 1824
Inventory access
Contributed to the Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung in 1994
Selection of Reference works
  • Verborgene Schätze der österreichischen Aquarellmalerei, hrsg. von Rudolf Leopold/Franz Smola, Wien 2010 (Ausst.-Kat. Leopold Museum, Wien 05.03.2010-24.05.2010).
Keywords

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Provenance

Provenance research
Leopold Museum i

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