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ONLINECOLLECTION

The Praying Girl. The Holy Grave, Fragment II, 1900/01

Leopold Museum,
Vienna
Oil on canvas
123.5×85.3 cm

Artists

  • Albin Egger-Lienz

    (Stribach near Lienz 1868–1926 Zwölfmagreien/Bolzano)

Unfortunately not on display at the moment
It is childlike wonder, devotion and religious awe that the painter Albin Egger-Lienz (1868–1926), who was from Stribach near Lienz in East Tyrol, makes, with atmospheric intensity, the subject of his pictorial invention. With broad, short, open brushstrokes in a dynamic, spontaneous-looking painting style, Egger-Lienz makes the figure of a white-clad, barefoot child emerge in an upright, praying posture from the diffuse darkness of an apparently sacred room. Colorful luminous spheres in the background glow with a mystical light of oscillating colorfulness. The bright child figure and the horizontal band of light at the height of the girl’s upper body form the shape of a cross that shines out of the dark. Already in his earlier work Good Friday of 1893, still delicately elaborate in painting style and more detailed in narrative, a vernacular custom of his home region is the starting point of a similar depiction: for the church Easter services, illuminated colorful glass balls are arranged around the “Holy Sepulcher.”

Object data

Artist/author
  • Albin Egger-Lienz
Title
The Praying Girl. The Holy Grave, Fragment II
Date
1900/01
Art movement
Naturalism I Realism
Category
Painting
Material​/technique
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
123.5×85.3 cm
Signature
Signed lower right: Egger Lienz
Credit line
Leopold Museum, Vienna, Inv. 2082
Inventory access
Contributed to the Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung in 1994
Selection of Reference works
  • Albin Egger-Lienz: 1868-1926, hrsg. von Gert Ammann/Michael Fuhr, Wien 2008 (Ausst.-Kat. Leopold Museum, Wien, 15.02.2008–29.05.2008).
  • Wilfried Kirschl: Albin Egger-Lienz: 1868-1926; das Gesamtwerk; [Monographie in zwei Bänden], Wien 1996.
Catalogue raisonne
  • Kirschl 1996: M 169/II
Keywords

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Provenance

Provenance research
Leopold Museum i

Franz Hauer, Wien (1911-1914); (1)
Nachlass Franz Hauer, Wien (1914-1920);
Auktion: 15.03.1920, C. J. Wawra, Wien, Albin Egger-Lienz und zeitgenössische Künstler in der Sammlung Franz Hauer sen., Kat. Nr. 21: “Karfreitag”;
Familie Hauer, Wien (ab 1920); (2)
Zwischen 1920 und 1930 wurde das Bild zwischen den Geschwistern Leopold und Friedericke Hauer geteilt. Friederike Hauer erhielt den rechten Teil des Bildes.
Friederike Hauer , Wien (vor 1930); (3)
Dr. Rudolf Leopold, Wien (o.D.);
Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung, Wien (1994).

  1. Wilfried Kirschl, Albin Egger-Lienz: 1868-1926. Das Gesamtwerk, Wien 1996, S. 521, M169/II sowie S. 709f., Anm. 198 und 199.
  2. Archiv des Dorotheum Wien, Annotierter Auktionskatalog des Auktionshauses Wawra zur Nachlassauktion Franz Hauer, Wien 1920. Dort Name des Käufers: „Hauer“.
  3. Heinrich Hammer, Egger-Lienz, Innsbruck 1930, S. 263

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