Lot 309 Dα

Lesser Ury's important painting of Berlin's well-known Café Bauer demonstrates how masterfully Ury could capture the atmosphere and “zeitgeist” of the vibrant metropolis on canvas.
Opened by Vienna's Mathias Bauer at the corner of Friedrichstraße and the stately avenue of Unter den Linden in 1877, this establishment designed in the style of a Viennese cafe quickly developed into one of the city's most important places to meet. The painting presents viewers with a view through the first storey of the cafe on to the broad, veranda-like balcony. The street lamps shine all the way into the cafe from the night-time Unter den Linden. A seated man is smoking to the left, absorbed in his newspaper. Ury has not selected this attribute randomly, because the variety of newspapers, weeklies and booklets from around the world made available at the Café Bauer was actually considered the best around.
Thanks to its own generator, the Café Bauer was already providing its guests with electric light in 1884 and thus stood at the forefront of electrification in Wilhelminian Berlin, which was still largely lit by gas. It is therefore not surprising that this distinctive establishment was one of the places most frequented by Ury in the city and that we find it depicted repeatedly among the artist's cafe scenes. The Café Bauer was simultaneously more than a cafe: it stood for a new attitude towards life, which made a lasting impression on social life in the city and “revealed a luxury previously unheard of in Berlin” (see Sibylle Groß in her expert report, Berlin 2017; Hans Schliepmann, Bier- und Kaffeehäuser, in: Berlin und seine Bauten 1896, vol. 3, pp. 15 f.).

For this lot, special conditions are applicable (legend "D" according to the conditions of sale).