On New Year's Day in 1946, Franz von Zülow presented his wife with this painting, as documented on the reverse by a handwritten note "New Year's greeting 1946 from Franzl to me".
It is - after the end of the war - a hopeful departure into a new year. High above the roofs, a chimney sweeper happily announces a new beginning and a woman does the New Year's clean-up in front of her house. One can almost feel the clinking cold of this winter morning visible on the iced surfaces and frosted trees. Nevertheless, the picture bears a cheerful tune, carried by the warm, pastel colors of the houses. Zülow paints this snapshot with fast brush strokes. His dynamic painting style, combined with the expressively exaggerated color palette, lends the motif an almost magically entranced aura.
With this picture Franz von Zülow has not only succeeded in giving a friendly and hopeful New Year's present. It also bears the unmistakable signature of one of the most versatile and important Austrian painters of the interwar period.