Der Tanzfex, Walzerlied von Gustav Pick

What you are looking at

A two-part image advertising a waltz-song (Walzerlied) by Gustav Pick. The upper vignette shows an animated ballroom or concert hall scene: a large mixed gathering of fashionably dressed figures in mid-19th-century costume, centered on a platform or stage where musicians perform beneath an ornate chandelier and decorative arch. The crowd stands and mingles—some couples in social proximity, others observing—in the relaxed posture of an audience or salon rather than an organized line dance. The lower vignette depicts a solitary man seated at a writing desk in a study or office, pen in hand, suggesting the composer at work. Both scenes are rendered in soft brown and sepia tones, with careful cross-hatching to model form and create depth. The decorative typography of the title dominates the center, flanked by these complementary scenes of the social and creative acts of dance music.

The dancing

In the ballroom scene, figures are upright and loosely arranged rather than in formal couples' positions; some stand side by side in conversational attitudes, others face inward toward the performers. The women wear full skirts with visible crinolines, the men tailcoats and formal dress. No one is captured mid-leap or in an exaggerated dance frame; the overall impression is of restful sociability punctuated by music, rather than vigorous partnered movement. The seated composer at the desk adopts the contemplative, motionless posture of creative labor—a pointed contrast to the animation above.

The dance depicted

This is a waltz-song (Walzerlied), a hybrid vocal-instrumental form that combined a vocal melody sung by a soloist or small group with orchestral waltz accompaniment, popular in Vienna and German-speaking Europe from the 1820s onward. The image does not depict active dancing—no one is in a waltz hold or executing the characteristic turning, rising-and-falling movement of the waltz. Instead, it shows the social occasion and the creative process: a salon or ball where such music would be performed and danced, and the composer's study where it was written. The waltz itself is implied rather than shown.

How it was made

This is a chromolithograph or hand-colored lithograph (the technique cannot be determined with certainty from the image alone, but the soft tonal gradations, cross-hatching, and careful modeling of light are consistent with mid-19th-century lithographic printing). The use of warm sepia and tan creates an antiquarian, nostalgic feel appropriate to a commercial music cover or advertisement. The technique allowed for broad, gentle circulation—this was a sheet-music cover or poster, meant for sale to amateur musicians and dancers in the home and concert hall, making the waltz accessible to the middle class.

About this work

This is a cover or advertisement for a waltz-song by composer Gustav Pick, presenting two allegorical vignettes: the social milieu of the dance and the solitary creative act that produced the music. It is not a depiction of the dance itself, but rather a dual portrait of waltz culture—at the moment of social enjoyment and at the moment of artistic composition. The work belongs to a vast genre of 19th-century printed dance music marketed to amateur performers and ballroom-goers, a visual and commercial form now as historically significant as the music itself.

How to look at it

Attend to the contrast between the two scenes: the upper, social and collective (dancers as audience and participants in a shared event) and the lower, isolated and productive (the composer alone with his work). Notice that no one in the ballroom is actually dancing in any legible pose—the emphasis is on gathering, music-making, and social ease rather than on bodily virtuosity. The architectural setting (the arch, the chandelier) and the formal dress signal a place of refinement and leisure where this music would have been valued.

The artist

The work is credited to Gustav Pick as composer; the visual artist is not recorded. The lithograph was published by Josef Weinberger in Leipzig, a major music publisher of the 19th century. Weinberger's house was known for high-quality, aesthetically sophisticated packaging of popular music, and this cover exemplifies that investment in design and print as marketing.

The period

The waltz emerged as the dominant ballroom dance of the early 19th century, displacing earlier court dances and becoming the social dance of the middle class by the 1830s–1860s. Vienna was its capital, and Strauss, Lanner, and dozens of composers wrote thousands of waltzes for concert and ballroom. The waltz-song was a hybrid form that brought the waltz into the parlor and concert hall, allowing amateur singers and pianists to perform and enjoy it without a full orchestra. This image dates from the era when the waltz reached its commercial and cultural peak in Europe, and when printed sheet music was a major commodity.

Where it lives

This work is held in the New York Public Library's Prints collection, identified as a depiction of dance. The catalogue record provides minimal metadata; the artist and date are unknown, and the medium is not specified.

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