Hans Makart’s Procession Sketches

For the Imperial couple’s silver wedding anniversary in 1879, the City of Vienna organized a procession, which the artistic director Hans Makart scripted in a total of thirty-five of these large-format oil sketches. At an astonishing pace, he created this monumental series, which would play an important role in the public promotion of the project. The plan to use Makart’s works as decoration in the new city hall fell through. Twenty-six of these procession sketches have been preserved at the Wien Museum.