Chronology:Atzenbrugg
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1818c.7 Franz Schubert Watches a "Game of Ball" Near Vienna
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
An artist produced a pen-and-ink watercolor drawing of composer Franz Schubert and friends attending a "Game of Ball" near Vienna Austria in 1817 or 1818.
Sources:
Described in a Schubert biography [Franz Schubert: A Biography, by Elizabeth Norman McKay. Oxford University Press, 1996. ]
See image at Ball Games at Atzenbrugg with Franz Schubert (1797-1828... (#219422) (meisterdrucke.us)
Comment:
Notes from Digger Mark Pestana, 7/29/2022:
"The game in question may be a simple game of catch but from the postures & gestures of the participants, it seems more like a game in which the ball is struck with the hand, back & forth between groups or individuals. There appear 5 people actively involved in the play, visually following a ball overhead on the right side of the image. Note, too, a man & woman in the lower left, both reaching for another ball on the ground. In the center foreground is a group of 4 men, one playing violin, one playing guitar, and the composer Schubert seated on the right, curly hair, glasses, and smoking a pipe.
The artist, Leopold Kupelwieser, was the brother of Joseph Kupelwieser, who wrote the libretto for an opera Schubert composed in 1823. Both brothers, and Schubert, were members of a group of about 20 Viennese artists who called themselves "The Nonsense Society." The group formed in April 1817 and disbanded in December 1818. The picture must have been made between those dates. Atzenbrugg is a small town just west of Vienna.
Interestingly, in the same biography, I found a "ball"-related quote from Schubert himself: "Man resembles a ball in play, subject to chance and passions." (from Schubert's diary, September 1816)."
Note: As of summer 2022 Protoball lists shlagball, kaiserball, imperial ball, and call ball as Austrian games. Bill Hicklin's summary of Schlagball is at https://protoball.org/Modern_rules_of_Schlagball. We don't know much about the other games, nor when they were played.
Query:
Is more known about Schubert's interest in ballplaying (if any)?
Do we know of baserunning games in the Vienna area in this era?
Circa
1818