View of Vienna from the Krapfenwaldl

Four years before this view was painted, early in March 1830, ice that had jammed on the Danube east of Vienna broke loose. The water swept through the Leopoldstadt and other districts near the river, and 74 people died. The river winding across the plain on the left is that same Danube, curling in loops and side arms between sandbanks. Only between 1870 and 1875 was it forced into the straight channel it follows today. Toma painted the scene in 1834 from the Krapfenwaldl, a wooded height on the edge of the Vienna Woods. Further off the city spreads out, with the spire of St Stephen's rising above the roofs. On the grass in front, Viennese are out for the day, two women at one side, and a young woman and a man lying by a stone wall with a white dog.