Waldmüller selected by Dorotheum

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

Here is a small painting, 55 x 44 cm, showing a genre scene in a country house. Three young girls are busy decorating the hat of a conscript. Their clothes are beautifully colored and lighted by the sun.

This work is dated 1854 and signed by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, the most important Austrian painter of his time. The nice and careful drawing makes us classify it properly in the ancient art (before 1860) but it is typical of such charming and intimate scenes from the mid-nineteenth century that took as themes the religious celebrations and, as here, the events of military life. The preparation of the conscript for leaving home was a kind of major passage rite in a young man's life.

This work will be sold in October by Dorotheum, which operates mainly in Vienna. It is estimated 300 K €.

Dorotheum often sells important works by Waldmüller. On 30 November 2005, a scene of pilgrimage reached € 1.1 million hammer price (1.32 M € premium included).

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

K € 490 including premium. It is a very good price, which rewards a charming work. Waldmüller sells well at Dorotheum in Vienna. Congratulations to the auction house.