The coal yard 1903
.
Description see below.
JQAW# G_1903_160
Oil on cardboard 50 x 64 cm
Signature: John Ɑdams 903
Private collection Austria
A yard surrounded by a wooden fence with a wooden shingle-roofed farm building, in front of it a pile of coal and a pile of firewood. The roof of the farm building is pulled down on the right, forming an open shed; there is a chimney on the roof. On the right, in the yard, an empty ladder truck pulled by two brown horses, waiting to be loaded. At the fence some small fruit trees and a row of tall poplars. In the background green meadows and hilly landscape.
The Coal Yard is a genre painting that depicts the everyday industrial supply of fuel (wood and coal) naturalistically and without romantization, which makes it special among the works of Adams and his contemporaries. Adams may have been inspired by the iconic 1898 painting of the "Iron Foundry Kitschelt in Skodagasse" by the aged Rudolf von Alt. In 1903, Adams produced a series of works depicting everyday life (stable study, ox team, horse team, cobbler's workshop), all of which are unfortunately lost. A single surviving counterpart is "Windmill near Edam", also from 1903. Both works were consigned to the Künstlerhaus at the same time for the autumn exhibition (Kohlenhof: KH EL 46 #2625; Windmühle: KH EL 46 #2526) and were also purchased on the first day of the exhibition (Das Vaterland November 22, 1903, supplement page IV; Die Reichspost December 2, 1903, p.10).
Cross-references
Exhibited
1903 Künstlerhaus Vienna (EL 46 1903/04 #2625).
Literature
Provenance
Dr. Thum, purchse KH Exhibition 1903 (200 Kr, KH EL 46 1903/04 #2625).
Unknown.
Auction Dorotheum Vienna 7.9.2021, Lot 138.
Private Collection, Austria.