The objective of the study residence in Vienna by Irena Kraševac between November 3 and November 7 was to gain some familiarity with the archival records and works of Austrian artists who came to the Adriatic coast in the 19th century, painting motifs of Dalmatia.
The research was conducted in the following institutions: the Graphic Cabinet of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (Kupferstichkabinett/Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien), the Albertina and the Belvedere Gallery. Thanks to the great kindness of Austrian colleagues, interesting data about Austrian painters who stayed in Dalmatia were found, and original drawings and oil paintings created on their journeys were seen. One of the most important of the Austrian painters, Emil Jakob Schindler (1842-1892) stayed in Dalmatia on several occasions, the result being a large number of still existing drawings and sketches of motifs of Šibenik, Split and of Dubrovnik, in which he resided the longest, on a trip to Corfu in the winter of 1887-1888.
In the permanent display of the Belvedere Gallery is his celebrated painting “Pax. Cemetery by Dubrovnik” (oil on canvas, 207×271 cm), painted in Vienna in 1891 after sketches made while he was staying in that city. Colleagues in the Belvedere, Werner Sommer, MA, and curator Dr Alexander Klee enabled Irena Kraševac to see the Schindler works in the stores, while archival records and other literature were accessible in the Belvedere Research Centre. Further work on the oeuvre of Schindler will cover works created in Dalmatia while he was on his travels in 1874, in 1887-1888 and in 1890, as well as his diary entries made at the time, and kept in the Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek).