(Vienna 1793-1875) A landscape in the Viennese, c.1817, pencil, bruch and black ink, brown washes, on laid paper, treated with red chalk on the reverse, 13,2 x 21,1 cm, mounted, unframed, (Sch)

The present study is a preliminary drawing for an etching dated 1817, which repeated the painting „A party from the Prater“ which was originally acquired by Count Metternich and is lost today. With this painting Ender was awarded the frist prize for landscape painting at the Academy. In preparing the etching the drawing was drawn in a reverse sense to the painting; the outlines of the drawing in combination of the red chalk treatment on the verso were reinforced for transfer on the plate. The sheet with its atmospheric landscape is particularly interesting not only because it is a precious document for the lost painting, which laid the grounds for his fame as a landscape artist but also because it is one of the rare preliminary drawings for etchings and thus grants insight into the working procedure of Ender as an etcher.

Literature: Walter Koschatzky, Thomas Ender 1793-1875. Kammermaler Erzherzog Johanns, Graz 1982, pp. 22-23, Cat. 6, p. 174 (ill. of the etching).