Musée No:508.005
Regular price £25.00Feldzeugmeister Anton Graf Prokesch von Osten
Artist: Leopold Carl Müller
Date: 1875
Leopold Carl Müller, (1834 - 1892), was an Austrian genre painter noted for his Orientalist works. Born in Dresden to Austrian parents, he was a pupil of Karl von Blaas and of Christian Ruben at the Academy in Vienna. Obliged to support his family after his father's death, he worked eight years as an illustrator for the Vienna Figaro. Between 1873 and 1886 Müller travelled a total of nine times to Egypt, often staying for up to six months at a time. He would eventually become known as the "Orientmüller". However, although he started the paintings on his travels he completed some of them in his studio in Venice. Many of his pictures of the Orient came to the art dealer Henry Wallis in England, where he became was well known as in Austria. He made his name through a series of scenes from popular life in Italy and Hungary. In 1877 he was appointed professor and in 1890 rector of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. His sisters were the painters Marie Müller (1847-1935) and Berta Müller (1848–1925), both well known in Austria for their portrait paintings. The third sister, Josefine, married the Austrian portrait painter Eduard Swoboda (1814-1902), he was the father of the painter Rudolf Swoboda and the portrait painter Josefine Swoboda.
The sitter, Feldzeugmeister Anton Graf Prokesch von Osten, was a man of great versatility, whose multi-faceted career as a soldier, then as a diplomat and statesman, was one of the most remarkable of Austria in the nineteenth century.
© Belvedere, Wien
