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ONLINECOLLECTION

Barcarole (Mythical Creature with Lyre), 1914

Leopold Museum,
Vienna
Leopold Museum,
Vienna
India ink, opaque white on paper
33.8×44.1 cm

Artists

  • Franz Sedlacek

    (Wrocław 1891, 1945 missing in Poland)

Unfortunately not on display at the moment
A “barcarole” is a type of Italian gondola song that was revisited by Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880) in his opera The Tales of Hoffmann. The 1914 work Barcarole (Mythical Creature with Lyre), which Franz Sedlacek (1891, missing since 1945) painted with India ink on paper, is stylistically reminiscent of antique Greek vase painting in which figures were rendered as bright omissions, more closely defined through delicate, precise outlines, on a dark ground. This wondrous mythical creature is a sort of sea dragon with human facial features, arms and legs, whose overall shape is reminiscent of a gondola. Floating gracefully and calmly on the water, it appears to be singing and playing the lyre. Despite the strictly bichrome, shadowless and sharply delineated black-and-white rendering, the creature appears impressively three-dimensional.

Object data

Artist/author
  • Franz Sedlacek
Title
Barcarole (Mythical Creature with Lyre)
Date
1914
Art movement
Art Nouveau, Symbolism
Category
Graphic work
Material​/technique
India ink, opaque white on paper
Dimensions
33.8×44.1 cm
Signature
Signed and dated upper right: FRANZ.SEDLACEK.1914.
Credit line
Leopold Museum, Vienna, Inv. 1915
Inventory access
Contributed to the Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung in 1994
Keywords

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Provenance

Provenance research
Leopold Museum i
Dr. Rudolf Leopold, Wien (o.D.);
Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung, Wien (1994)

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