Václav Brozík was a leading official artist of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the late nineteenth century. La Defénestration portrays the event in Czech history which triggered the Thirty Years War. In the name of a local Protestant majority, Bohemian nobles took action against the Catholic rule of Matthias II, Holy Roman Emperor and head of the Austrian House of Habsburg. Defying orders which forbade them to assemble, the Protestant radicals confronted the Catholic regents in Hradcany Castle on 23 May 1618 and pushed them out a window. The officials reportedly survived by landing on rubbish in the moat.
[1] See Catalogue of a highly important collection of high-class modern pictures : exhibited by H. Koekkoek & Sons of 72 Piccadilly, London, W., at the Koekkoek Gallery, 331 & 333 Collins Street, Melbourne, Melbourne: Mason, Firth & McCutcheon, Printers, 1890, no. 44, p. 13-14, accessed via State Library of Victoria, http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/107431. Purchased with Paul Joanowitch's The traitor (p.318.1-1).
Exhibited, Autumn exhibition, Koekkoek & Sons, Melbourne, 1890, no. 44.