Paul Flora "Altwiener Figuren II" (Old Vienna characters) ca. 1965

In his caricatures, Paul Flora has repeatedly taken up certain motifs, such as the Tyrolean marksmen or as shown in this picture – the “Altwiener Figuren” (Old Viennese characters).

In those drawings he takes up on peculiarities of the Habsburg monarchy, pointing to the bloated bureaucracy at court. Here we see Emperor Franz Josef II, dressed in a general’s uniform with its feather-adorned hat, striding forward. He is followed by a crowd of adjutants and courtiers. In the elongated horizontal format the endless parade of the emperor’s wake seems to pass by us. With a sharp pen, Flora draws a bow from His Majesty on the left to the lowest-ranking servant on the far right of the sheet, exhibiting the entire spectrum of characters, from the saber-rattling general to the obsequious court official.
With his superb technique, as can be seen particularly well in the bloated figures, and perfectly balanced between contours and hatchings, Paul Flora delivers a snappy image of a period that has disappeared a long time ago.