OTTAWA.- The National Gallery of Canada has entered into an agreement to acquire At the Lunch Table (1901), a painting by Austrian painter Carl Moll (1861–1945), to add to the European art collection. At the Lunch Table is currently on view in the European galleries at the Gallery and the first painting by the artist to enter the national collection and the first work by the artist in a public institution in Canada.

A Major Discovery
Believed to have been lost for nearly a century, the work’s history is entwined with the events that would shatter European society. At the Lunch Table was painted in 1901 and was soon after exhibited in Vienna, Munich, Budapest and Berlin. By the late 1930s, the painting was owned by Siegmund Isaias Zollschan of Vienna. A Jewish family, the Zollschans were persecuted by the Nazis and Siegmund perished in the Holocaust. However, his son Arthur was able to flee and eventually immigrate to North America. Moll’s At the Lunch Table was among several possessions that Siegmund sent to a relative in Canada for safekeeping before the war. It has been cared for by the family ever since.

Carl Moll, Leader of the Vienna Secession
A leading figure in Austria, Moll was one of the founding members of the famed Vienna Secession, along with his friend Gustav Klimt. The Secession promoted new developments in contemporary Austrian and international art, and has come to represent the remarkable creativity of the Viennese avant-garde at the turn of the twentieth century. First shown in the 10th Secession exhibition in 1901, At the Lunch Table depicts the artist’s family, including his stepdaughter, Alma Mahler. A calm, reflective and personal work, it is an important example of Moll’s renowned interior scenes, which reveal the concerns and aspirations of Viennese society at a time of radical change.