A well-executed genre painting of three men playing cards by Johann Hamza. In this scene, a group of men in eighteenth-century costume are depicted playing cards at a table by a tavern window. Having lost the hand, one of the men is shown standing over the table to confront another player, dressed in green, who holds a pipe in his hand. Meanwhile, the remaining seated card player attempts to reason with the unhappy man, who, in his anger, has swept the cards and the stakes, together with an ale flask, onto the floor.

Johann Anton Hamza was born on 21 June, 1848 in Kirch Mislau, Moravia, which was then part of the Austrian Empire. His parents were Thomas Hamza and Josefa Linhardt. He showed an early talent for art and after leaving school moved to Vienna in 1865 where he attended the Vienna Academy. He initially studied under Karl Wurzinger (1817-1883) and Friedrich Carl Mayer (1824-1903). He later became a master student of Eduard von Engerth (1818-1897) at the academy between 1874 and 1877.

Influenced by Wurzinger and Engerth he began producing figurative genre scenes, many of them historical and became one of the leading exponents of its resurgence in popularity in Vienna. He began exhibiting in Vienna from 1879 and also exhibited in Dresden, Munich and London.

He married Louise Stanz and the couple lived in Vienna. Their son Hans Hamza (1879-1945) also became a genre and figurative artist and later joined his father in his studio. In 1888, he became a member of the Vienna Kunstlerhaus (Artists’ Association). In 1891, he was awarded the gold medal at an art exhibition in London. By 1900, he was living at 71, Mariahilfer Strasse, Vienna’s leading commercial thoroughfare where he kept a studio. A 1915 directory lists him as being a historical painter living at 71, Mariahilfer Strasse.

Hamza died in Vienna on 22 December, 1927. Examples of his work can be found in the Vienna Museum.

© Benton Fine Art