The Distraint

In 1830s Vienna, factory production was wiping out jobs in the old trades, pushing many households into poverty and debt. In 1840 Peter Fendi painted one of them on the day the bailiff came. A distraint is the seizure of goods for unpaid rent, and here it happens in one bare room shared by a family of seven.

The father, a craftsman in a work apron, sits with his head in his hand. A court officer in a top hat and spectacles reads out the order and points to the door. A policeman in a cocked hat goes through the table drawer, while an assistant on the floor ties up the family's bedding. The mother and the children cling to one another, and in the bed at the back an old woman weeps into a cloth.