ALFRED RÖLLER (1864-1935) SCHNEEBERG BAHN BEI WIEN. 1904. 37 1/2x24 3/4 inches, 95 1/4x63 cm. Frieder. Sperl, Vienna. Condition B+: repaired tears at edges, some affecting image; minor creases and abrasions in margins and image. Mounted on Chartex. The Schneeberg is a 2,076 meter high mountain in the Alps, situated a mere 40 miles away from Vienna and considered by residents as part of the Viennese Hausberge (local mountains). By the end of the 19th century, it had become a favorite retreat for Vienna's upper classes and, in 1897, a cog railway was opened and began taking visitors to the plateau. Originally designed and printed in 1897 to advertise the journey and promote the hotels available to visit in the region, Röller devises a fabulous, mythical allegory for train travel. The original poster has an architecturally-precise rendering of the "Hotel Schneebergbahn" prominently depicted in the lower right corner and a much smaller, almost indiscernible hotel in the distant mountains. Several years later, the poster was reissued, this time without the hotel in the foreground and a larger image of the Hotel Hochschneeberg in the distant mountains. Alfred Röller was a founding member of the Vienna Secession and one of the group's most prolific poster artists. He contributed to their renowned magazine Ver Sacrum and became Editor after issue seven. Michael Pabst, in Wiener Graphik um 1900 writes, "[Röller's] posters, notably those for the Slevogt exhibition and Schneebergbahn inaugurate modern typography" (p. 339). Von zur Westen wrote that this poster "struck me as far the best poster printed in Vienna in the summer of 1897" (Zeitschrift fur Buchenfreunde 1903/1904, p. 128). Mascha 10 (var), Stembera p. 43 (var), Life With Posters 131 (var), The Poster May, 1900, p. 101 (var), von Zur Westen p. 63.
