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The Game of Chess

Die Schachpartie
The Game of Chess
Gesamtansicht, Vorderseite
The Game of Chess
Josef Danhauser, Die Schachpartie, 1839, Öl auf Leinwand, 135 x 175 cm, Belvedere, Wien, Inv.-Nr. Lg 1108
Foto: Belvedere, Wien
This is the English text for C. Contact: Reproabteilung.

  • The Game of Chess

  • Date1839
    • Artist Josef Danhauser (1805 Wien – 1845 Wien)
  • Object typePainting
  • MediumOil on canvas
  • Dimensions
    135 × 175 cm
  • SignatureSign. und dat. unten Mitte: Jos. Danhauser 1839
  • Inventory numberLg 1108
  • Location Currently not on display
  • Credit Line2001 Leihgabe der Goal Arts Foundation, Freeport, Bahamas

  • The lady has won. Leaning casually against a chair, she is looking at the chessboard. Her opponent, the seated elderly gentleman, has lost, his king is checkmated. He is staring incredulously at the game. Numerous people populate this upper-middle-class salon; some have been watching the game, others have been talking - yet they all seem isolated, which is explained by the fact that Danhauser had sketched them all separately prior to creating the painting. Our eye is drawn to the androgynous youth who is looking up at the lady in infatuation. He is holding a laurel branch: a symbol of her triumph. The roles have been reversed. The woman is superior to the man - as in the group of statues on the right of the picture. They are Omphale and Hercules: Omphale with the skin of a lion and a club, Hercules, the hero of Greek mythology, with a distaff and in women’s clothes. The setting is a salon, which is shown here as a society meeting place where women were in control and determined which guests would be invited. However, this had no impact whatsoever on notions of gender in society as a whole.
    • Sammlung Baron Louis Pereira.
    • 1897-1936 Sammlung Franz Xaver Mayer, Wien.
    • 1937/1938 bis mindestens 1948 Norbert Mayer, Wien.
    • 1961 Privatbesitz, Toronto.
    • 1983 George Encil, Freeport (Bahamas)
    • 2001 Dauerleihgabe Goal Arts Foundation, Freeport (Bahamas)
    Contact Provenance Research

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