(Vienna 1842–1892 Westerland auf Sylt) View of Ragusa, signed and dated Schindler (1)890, oil on canvas, 140 x 180 cm, framed, (W)

Literature:
Heinrich Fuchs, Emil Jakob Schindler, catalogue raisonné, Vienna 1970 p. 275,
CR no. 727, ill. 86

Provenance:
573rd Auction, Dorotheum, 13 September 1966, lot 104, ill. plate 63;
615th Auction, Dorotheum, 15 March 1977, lot 177, ill. plate XXXVIII.
Austrian private property.

The people shown in the foreground are the artist’s wife, the Hamburg singer Anna Bergen, and their daughter Alma, who later married Gustav Mahler and Franz Werfel. The figures on the right in the middle of the work are the painter Carl Moll, shown dressed as a gardener, and Schindler’s second daughter, Grete, who later married the painter Wilhelm Legler. Schindler had rented a house in Ragusa which is clearly visible at the edge of the cliffs. During severe Sirocco winds the waves would break over the cliff, creating a magical spectacle. The work was executed in 1887 during Schindler’s second journey to the Dalmatian coast. Schindler is doubtless the most outstanding practitioner of Austrian mood painting. “He is regarded as a spiritus rector, a leadership figure and shining light” (Gerbert Frodl, Stimmungsimpressionismus, Vienna 1999, p. 30.) The work here may be regarded as one of the most, if not the most important of Emil Jakob Schindler’s paintings.