The Josefsplatz in Vienna

The Josefsplatz in Vienna, a watercolour from 1831 in the Albertina, depicts one of the imperial capital's most architecturally coherent squares: the Josefsplatz, flanked by the Spanish Riding School, the Imperial Court Library, and the Augustinian Church, and centred on a bronze equestrian statue of Joseph II erected in 1807. Alt painted this view at age twenty-two, part of the intensive topographic work that established him as Vienna's pre-eminent urban recorder. The Albertina, which holds an extensive Alt archive, preserves this early work as evidence of his precocious mastery of architectural watercolour. The Josefsplatz in 1831 was one of Vienna's most photographed views once photography arrived, and Alt's early watercolour pre-dates the photographic record of the square, giving it additional documentary value.

Watercolour on paper allows Alt to capture the luminous quality of morning or afternoon light on the square's pale stone facades with washes of transparent colour that oil paint cannot replicate. His architectural draughtsmanship — evident in the precisely rendered library facade and riding school colonnade — underpins the washes with a structural confidence unusual in a painter of twenty-two.