The Empty Chair

The work

The Empty Chair is an oil on board, 277 by 106 cm, exhibited on 7 July 1899. The subject is Lake Tarn in winter, rendered in the upright, narrow format the board imposes on the painter, so that the sheet of water and the sky above it are made to answer for most of the composition. The catalogue records no earlier title and no preparatory studies. The work has been treated since its first showing as a single, self-contained statement, without sequel or pendant in the artist's hand.

The prize

1 December 1899, Vellmar: Lorenz Hallin was awarded the Museum Gold Medal for The Empty Chair, the prize-giving held some five months after the painting's first exhibition. Report.

The creator

Lorenz Hallin, soldier, was born on 10 September 1831 at Sudfurt and died on 16 June 1907. He came to the medal late in a career whose record is otherwise military rather than artistic, and the catalogue holds no other work from his hand, exhibited or unexhibited, before or after 1899.

Other works by the same hand

None catalogued.