Artworks

 Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, which put a final end to the

Napoleonic conflicts that had ravaged Europe for the previous two decades,

Vienna, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the associated Germanic states

enjoyed a relative calm until 1848. The term Biedermeier refers to a variety of

art forms which flourished during this time period. Many artists avoided

political and historic subjects and rather chose to concentrate on domestic

themes and local landscapes. Along with the portraits by artists such as Friedrich

von Amerling, landscapes by the likes of Friedrich Gauermann and Thomas

Ender, the genre scenes and landscapes by Waldmüller came to define the age.

Waldmüller himself arose from modest beginnings; his ancestors coming from

farming and domestic serving families. Though he enrolled in the Academy of

Fine Arts in 1807 and later was made a teacher there in 1819, he had a difficult

relationship with the Academy. He advocated a close observation of nature that

was at times at odds with the Academy’s classical curriculum of instruction. The

artists’ early output consisted primarily of portraits and numerous copies after

Old Master paintings. Portrait commissions were to be a mainstay of

Waldamüller’s livelihood through the 1850s and he was able to attract many

notable sitters.

While he continued to be successful courting Viennese aristocracy for important

commissions, by the 1830s Waldmüller began to produce the landscapes and

genre scenes of the Austrian countryside for which he now is most famous. His

landscapes are almost exclusively from areas outside the city of Vienna. Many

depict the mountains and valleys around the spa town of Bad Ischl high in the

Salzkammergut.  The relatively few works that are of Vienna focus on the

massive trees of Prater, the alluvial island park along the Danube. Similarly, his

genre paintings revolve, almost exclusively, on scenes of daily life of the

farming families in the countryside. Though Waldmüller produced a number of

impressive still lifes in his career, the genre was never a large part of his output.

In his early forays, he produced still lifes not dissimilar from canvases by his

kinsman Franz Xavier Petter with the inclusion of exotic elements such as

pineapples and parrots.

Dog Guarding a Basket of Grapes with a View of Heiligenstadt and the Danube

in the Distance  is dated 1836. From his sketchbooks, we know that Waldmüller

took rooms in Heiligenstadt around July of 1834 and recorded the surrounding

countryside. The town of Heiligenstadt was a small community known for its

viniculture on the outskirts of Vienna. It was a popular destination for the

Viennese citizenry to spend a day in the country exploring the Weinerwald or

visiting a Heuriger, or wine garden, many of which dotted the countryside. In

Waldmuller’s day, it was a short carriage ride from the center of Vienna. It is,

perhaps, best known for Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Statement. The composer

spent a summer there in 1802 and wrote a deeply moving letter decrying the toll

his incipient deafness was taking on his gifts and the increasing isolation that

ensued.

In the present work, Waldmüller clearly establishes the location of the wine

country with a view of the onion-domed Heiligenstadt church and the Danube in

the distance. In the foreground he has presented the fruits of the region - a basket

of grapes. With near granular clarity he displays the variety of winemaking

grapes overflowing the basket with the unseen laborer’s pastel plaid kerchief

and harvesting knife in the foreground. The figure of a perky and alert dog

stands guard at the left.

Waldmuller was not necessarily known as a specialist in animal painting. In his

farming scenes, there may occasionally appear the odd cow or chicken, but the

focus is primarily on the people. However, his keen powers of observation do

allow him to make convincing renderings of the animals. In several of his

portraits, particularly those of children, he included the family dog (fig. 1).

The breed of dog in this painting conforms primarily to the phenotype of a

Chihuahua. The sickle shaped tail and erect ears, muzzle and eyes are consistent

with that of the modern smooth-coated variety of the breed. However, based on

the basket he guards, he would be a bit large compared to the present day breed.

According to most histories, the origin of the breed dates back for centuries to

Central America. However, there are suggestions of a similar breed established

in Malta dating back to the Renaissance. There have been attempts to show the

breed's existence in Europe through artistic documentation; most astonishingly,

in Botticelli's Scenes from the Life of Moses  in the Sistine Chapel (fig. 2).  As for

the existence of a Chihuahua in Austria in 1836, it is not out of the realm of

possibility, even for a dog of Mexican origin. It must be remembered, that less

than 30 years later, the ill-fated Maximillian, younger brother of Emperor Franz

Joseph, was to sit on the throne of Mexico. It would be intriguing to know if

there was some sort of diplomatic/trade tie that may have brought this animal to

Austria at the time.

The present work may have been acquired directly from the artist by the brewer

Anton Mayer. Waldmüller painted portraits of Mayer and his wife Luise Mayer

(fig. 3 & 4) in 1836, the same year that this work was executed.

Download Full Fact Sheet