Description
Antique photograph from a book, circa 1892.
To enhance and protect the page we have commissioned in a bespoke frame and mount.
The frame has an overall size of 370mm x 400mm. Also available with a Gold frame option, your choice.
Entitled: THE GRABEN, VIENNA
Beneath the photograph an inscription reads: One of the oldest and most interesting streets
in Vienna is that which we may now in imagination enter, called the Graben. It derives its name
from the fact that this was the ancient Grab, or most surrounded by the fortified wall, which rose
where now are yonder buildings containing some of the most luxurious and expensive and retail
shops in Vienna. One would hardly expect to find within this busy street the solitary survivor of
the famous Wiener Wald, the ancient forest bordering the Danube. Yet at one corner of it is a
most extraordinary looking object, protected partly by the wall of the building, and partly by some
bands of iron. It is the famous Stock im Eisen, or the Iron stick. It is well named, for its
appearance is precisely that of an iron club. Investigation, however, proves it to be a mass of
wood, literally covered with nails, to some of which coins are attached. One of these has the
date of 1575. This ancient tree, (which apparently could not crumble now if it should try to) was
for some cause, now unknown, esteemed especially sacred; and every one who drove a nail
into its precious wood, received a spiritual shield against the devil. How odd it seems this
strange reminder of the past, standing thus grimly in the very centre of the city’s life. Just
as some superstition, like a dread of Friday or thirteen at a table, still exists amid the common
sense and science of the nineteenth century.
Page size circa 250mm x 280mm
Please see our shop for other similar framed photographs and prints. All our prints and
photographs are original, not a copy.
If you buy an item and then see it relisted this is because we occassionally have more than one available
Thank you for looking
