Johann Hamza

(Telč 1850–1927 Vienna)
The Flower Makers, signed J. Hamza Vienna, gallery stamp on the reverse Vytvarného umeni v Ostrave and remains of a label, oil on canvas, 64 x 83.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Galerie Salis, Salzburg, 1988;
there acquired by its current owner - Private Collection, Vienna.

With skilful painterly technique and an almost photographic realism, Johann Hamza draws the viewer of the present painting into Vienna’s world at the close of the 19th century. It depicts the interior of an artificial flower manufactory, where girls and young women are busily engaged in their work: two of them are absorbed in conversation while attaching delicate petals to wire before wrapping it in coloured paper to form the flower stem. In the light of the window, other women sit intently curling paper or fine fabric into blossoms. At the left-hand side of the table, a girl in a blue-and-white dress with a lace shawl over her shoulders carefully places the finished flowers into a box. Spread out across the large work tables lie fabrics, wires, and other materials, alongside a variety of artificial blooms, all rendered in meticulous detail by Hamza.

Such flower workshops, staffed mainly by apprentices and semi-skilled female workers, were numerous in Vienna during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Artificial flowers achieved worldwide renown as a “Viennese speciality” and enjoyed popularity not only among the nobility but also within the bourgeoisie, where the “language of flowers” was often used as a discreet means of expressing sentiments. It is therefore no surprise that the catalogue of the Vienna Jubilee Industrial Exhibition of 1888 lists, under the section “Clothing and Millinery Industry” and within “29th Class: Decorative Feathers and Artificial Flowers”, eight flower manufacturers, including two on Mariahilfer Strasse (Amelie Nowak, Vienna VI, Mariahilfer Strasse 87, and Wilhelm Zimmermann, Artificial Flower Factory, Vienna VII, Mariahilfer Strasse 62).

The flower workshop shown in this painting was in all likelihood also situated on Mariahilfer Strasse, specifically at the corner of Amerlingstrasse, as suggested by the view through the window. On the left, the building visible is that at Mariahilfer Strasse 73, where the Café Ritter, established in 1887 as a popular meeting place of the Viennese middle class, occupied the ground floor. On the right, Hamza shows us the rich, now-lost historicist façade with its prominent oriel of the Mariahilfer Hof (Mariahilfer Strasse 75 / Amerlingstrasse 19), built in 1888. The artist’s own studio was located at Mariahilfer Strasse 72, from where the view captured in the painting would have been possible. It is therefore plausible that the flower manufactory depicted was housed in the same building. This would also suggest a dating of the painting to around 1900.

From the mid-19th century onwards, Mariahilfer Strasse increasingly developed into Vienna’s leading commercial thoroughfare, where established firms expanded and new ones were founded. The Guild of Artificial Flower Makers was likewise located at Mariahilfer Strasse 87 in 1908, as reported in the Wiener Hausfrau (vol. 6, no. 4, 25 October 1908). The article further notes that artificial flower making was a common occupation for women, and that many young ladies in Vienna even fashioned flowers from coloured papers for amusement. The production of fabric flowers, however, was considered far more laborious, though also more rewarding, with instruction in the craft available from professional flower makers and workshops.

With his minute rendering of textures and his sensitive depiction of social interaction, Johann Hamza captures a fleeting moment whose fascination endures to this day.