A dancer in light blue twirls across the polished parquet floor of the Vienna Hofburg, her train trailing behind her. On the right, where the uniforms begin, an elderly gentleman in a white jacket with a full sideburn, Emperor Franz Joseph I, is speaking, surrounded by Hungarian magnates and members of the high nobility in fur-trimmed coats. Chandeliers, palm trees, a gallery filled with people - the watercolour ‘Court Ball at the Hofburg, 1900’ captures an entire society on a single sheet of paper. One has to imagine the music; the swaying dresses and the gleaming parquet floor set the rhythm all by themselves.
This scene was painted by a newcomer. Born on 27 March 1853 in Krefeld and trained at the Düsseldorf Academy, under Eduard von Gebhardt amongst others, Wilhelm Gause moved to Vienna in 1879 - a German who became an Austrian; both countries count him among their own. As a painter and press illustrator, he drew for the major illustrated magazines of his time, *Die Gartenlaube* and *Die Illustrirte Zeitung*; he found his true calling where the city observed itself: at balls and festivals. His watercolours earned him an honorary diploma in Dresden in 1889, as well as a silver medal in Paris.
A second ball scene, ‘Der Wiener Ball’, leads into another hall: Gothic in layout, with red velvet curtains and flowers reaching up to the stone figures; instead of uniforms, the black tailcoat prevails; no one is dancing at the moment; people are standing, greeting one another, seeing and being seen. The arts and culture columnist Eduard Pötzl of the *Neues Wiener Tagblatt* was Gause’s client and a close friend; when Pötzl was barely able to write following a case of food poisoning, he dedicated his final article, published on 26 March 1913, to his friend Wilhelm Gause.
Gause continued to follow high society even beyond Vienna. In 1896, a magnificent volume published by the Deutsche Verlagsanstalt in Stuttgart brought together 29 of his Karlovy Vary watercolours as heliogravures - exquisite intaglio prints. ‘Am Mühlbrunnen’, named after one of Karlsbad’s healing springs, captures a rainy day: black umbrellas crowd in front of the colonnade, the wet paving reflects the sky, a lady holds her umbrella aloft against the weather, and the spa guests take refuge under the roof. The print ‘Karlsbad’ adopts a bird’s-eye view, showing two ladies on a rock, with the spa town nestled in the valley basin below them. By then, the painter had long since withdrawn from public life: as early as 1889, he had moved from Vienna to Stein an der Donau, where he sketched Midsummer bonfires and the Wachau landscape, and watched his daughters Mini, Grete and Isolde grow up, all of whom became painters.
56s master prints of works by Wilhelm Gause; the originals are predominantly watercolours and engravings. The customers’ favourite is the court ball print, followed by several views of Karlsbad. The two ball scenes visibly complement one another: here, the white uniforms of the Hofburg; there, the black tailcoats beneath Gothic arches.
Wilhelm Gause and the Emperor, whom he had drawn so often, both died in 1916. The painter’s date of death was 13 June; he died in Stein an der Donau, now part of Krems - the little town that was his home for almost three decades.
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.jpg "Court Ball at the Hofburg, 1900 by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1317341).jpg "At the Mill Spring by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1323899).jpg "The Chamois on Stag")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1321960).jpg "Findlater")
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.jpg "Carlsbad by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1326315).jpg "The Castle Spring by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "At the Vienna International Art Exhibition of 1882 by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "The Viennese Ball by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1323896).jpg "Red or White Roses, Sir? by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1319422).jpg "Ball in the Spa House by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1321959).jpg "Hans Heiling (The Hans Heiling Rocks) by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1659686).jpg "Ball in Vienna")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1659686).jpg)
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1583794).jpg "Courtball in the Redoutensaele, Imperial Palace, Vienna by Wilhelm Gause")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1583794).jpg)
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1326314).jpg "The Schiller House by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "The Avenue of Vice in the Prater by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Court Ball at the Vienna Hofburg, the Town Palace of the Emperors of Austria-Hungary by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1326206).jpg "The Vestibule of the Theatre by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Party on the Ice by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Representation of a Ballet:")
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.jpg "The Archduchess Receiving Emperor William II at the Schwarzen-Adlerstiege by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1317340).jpg "Municipal Tennis Court by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1326313).jpg "The Vestibule of the Imperial Baths by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "The Graben, Central Square in Downtown Vienna by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1323897).jpg "Mill Spring Colonnade by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Trip to countryside near Vienna by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "The Christmas Fair Am Hof, 1901 by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1321943).jpg "Monument of Peter the Great by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "The Student Brasserie of the Thuringer Hof in Leipzig, c.1900 by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Franz Joseph I by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1514477).jpg "Crown Prince Rudolf at an Editorial Meeting by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1319424).jpg "Morning Promenade by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1321949).jpg "The Sprudel-Colonnade by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "The Flower Market by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1326317).jpg "Night Concert in the Municipal Park by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Franz Joseph I by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Emperor Franz Joseph I and czar Nikolaus II in Petersburg after the great formal dinner by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1321962).jpg "Along the Teplá River by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Vienna Lord Mayor Karl Lueger Riding in His Coach During the Flower-Corso in the Vienna Prater by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1511559).jpg "The Austrian Imperial Couple in the Hotel Garden of Cap Martin (engraving) by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Franz Joseph I by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "The Viennese Waiter by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Queen Victoria and Emperor Franz Joseph at the Hotel du Cimiez in Nice by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Emperor Franz Joseph I and Czar Nicholas II at the Parade on the Champ-de-Mars in St. Petersburg by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1323898).jpg "Hot Spring by Wilhelm Gause")
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 at his writing desk at Jagdrock (pencil) - (MeisterDrucke-84814).jpg "Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria at his writing desk at Jagdrock by Wilhelm Gause")
 at his writing desk at Jagdrock (pencil) - (MeisterDrucke-84814).jpg)
.jpg "Hunting Party - Emperor Franz Joseph at Table with Prince Leopold of Bavaria and Grand Duke Ferdinand IV from Tuscany by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Emperor Franz Joseph I and czar Nikolaus II at the parade on the Champ-de-Mars in St. Petersburg by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Queen Victoria and Emperor Franz Joseph in the Hotel du Cimiez in Nice by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II in Opatija by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Ball at Court - Reasoning of the Quadrille by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Emperor Franz Joseph I and Czar Nikolaus II in Petersburg After the Great Formal Dinner by Wilhelm Gause")
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.jpg "Ball at Court - Reasoning of the Quadrille by Wilhelm Gause")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1321961).jpg "Imperial Baths by Wilhelm Gause")
_-_(MeisterDrucke-1321961).jpg)
.jpg "Hunting Party - Emperor Franz Joseph at Table with Prince Leopold of Bavaria and Grand Duke Ferdinand IV from Tuscany by Wilhelm Gause")
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_Patineurs_a_la_belle_epoque_Peinture_de_-_(MeisterDrucke-962299).jpg "Party on the Ice by Wilhelm Gause")
_Patineurs_a_la_belle_epoque_Peinture_de_-_(MeisterDrucke-962299).jpg)
.jpg "Vienna by Wilhelm Gause")
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