Civilization Version III. Design for an unexecuted stained glass window above the western portal of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, 1947

From 1946, Anton Kolig (1886–1950) began to work intensively on designs for a new stained glass window above the western portal of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, after all the cathedral’s stained glass windows had been destroyed during a bomb raid on Vienna in March 1945. Kolig incorporated a design for faculty depictions with the title Civilization, which had been originally intended for Poznan University in Poland. The third version shows a female nude in the center, with a golden sun hovering above it. On the left, we see a female figure clad in green and holding a cross as an allegory of theology. The figure next to her, wearing a golden helmet, is likely an allegory of jurisprudence. In front of them, medicine is depicted as a three-figure group, consisting of a black figure representing the healing arts, a reclining nude in need of help, as well as a further youth. The person, clad in black, on the right can be associated with economics. The seated winged figure below has been identified already in an earlier version as an allegory of the humanities.

AK, 2023