Wien, Katharinenhalle

Max Pollak

This etching was likely created when Pollak was employed as an artist by the Austrian Army to chronicle World War I. Pollak was based in Vienna, Austria and did many of his early etchings based on his war observations around Vienna.

We believe this image to be of St. Katharinen's, a choir church and Dominican monestary founded in Stralsund, Austria, north of Vienna, in the 13th century. The structure saw several transformations, first as a municipal complex in the 16th century after the Reformation, then as an arsenal warehouse, an orphanage, and, eventually, a natural history museum. Today, it is the Meeresmuseum, featuring natural history, aquariums, and a wing devoted to Oceanography.

In this image, it appears the building, which in the early 20th century had been gutted and repurposed several times, was transformed into a hospital unit for wounded soldiers of World War I. Hospital beds are arranged, row after row, in the cathedral's nave. Hospital workers watch over them from the choir section.