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ONLINECOLLECTION

Girl in a Garden, 1906

Leopold Museum,
Vienna
Oil on canvas
136×68.4 cm

Artists

  • Hans Böhler

    (Vienna 1884‒1961 Vienna)

Currently on display at OG4
It is not only in title but also in style and composition that Hans Böhler’s (1884–1961) Girl in a Garden and Richard Gerstl’s (1883–1908) portrait Mathilde Schönberg in the Garden, dated two years later, have much in common. Painted in thick, gesturally applied colors, the two women in wide reform dresses appear to be floating amid the greenery of the gardens around them. However, the mood conveyed is entirely different: While Mathilde stoically strides out through the wildly luxuriating vegetation around her, the girl rather looks like a blithesome dancing fairy. Passing through the leaves of the trees around her, the incident light illuminates parts of her dress which seems to be dissolving into sheer airiness. In his depiction, Böhler invokes the questionable ideal of the “child-woman” or “femme fragile” that was so popular in fin-de-siècle Vienna.

Object data

Artist/author
  • Hans Böhler
Title
Girl in a Garden
Date
1906
Art movement
Impressionism
Category
Painting
Material​/technique
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
136×68.4 cm
Signature
Signed and dated lower right: Hans Böhler June 1906
Credit line
Leopold Museum, Vienna, Inv. 713
Inventory access
Contributed to the Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung in 1994
Keywords

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Provenance

Provenance research
Leopold Museum i

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