Tag: 1839.

Mihael Stroy, Portrait of a Lady in a Red Armchair (Ana Sermage), 1839

Mihael Stroy
Portrait of a Lady in a Red Armchair (Ana Sermage), 1839
oil on canvas
95 x 77 cm
MG-48

Mihael Stroy (Ljubno, 1803 – Ljubljana, 1871) was the most prominent Slovenian painter in the first half of the 19th century and a key figure within the Central European artistic milieu. After completing his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, he visited Zagreb in 1830 during his travels and remained there until 1841. He was active in artistic circles that embraced Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and the Biedermeier style. Stroy primarily painted portraits of public figures and distinguished citizens, capturing the era’s lifestyle and aesthetics, alongside religious and genre scenes. His body of work is particularly noted for his portraits of women, in which he demonstrated exceptional psychological insight. These portraits are characterised by their elegance and are often set in romantic surroundings that enhance their sophistication.
The 1839 painting Portrait of a Lady in a Red Armchair (Ana Sermage) reflects the tradition of representative portraits, showing women at the height of contemporary fashion and elegance. It depicts a middle-aged woman seated in a red armchair, her gaze fixed directly at the observer. She is dressed in a black, low-cut gown, with her hair styled in long curls adorned with a delicate scarf. A cashmere shawl in shades of blue and red is gracefully draped around her waist and across her lap. Her relaxed posture, along with her white gloves and an abundance of jewellery, draws particular attention. The striking use of colour contrasts and the refined characterisation of the subject establish this portrait as one of the finest works from the Slovenian artist’s Zagreb period.

Text: Luciana Fuks, trainee curator at the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by Robertina Tomić
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb

Mihael Stroy, A Portrait of Senator Kavić, 1839

Mihael Stroy
(1803-1871)
A Portrait of Senator Kavić, 1839
oil on canvas
34x24 cm
MG-65

Slovenian painter Mihael Stroy was one of those foreign painters whose stay in Croatia had a significant impact on Croatia’s cultural and creative milieu. He ended up in Croatia together with a generation of young enthusiasts at a time when feelings of patriotism and national pride were booming. He enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1822, at a time of Vienna’s decline in artistic creativity and of the emergence of Biedermeier, an original art movement and style of the bourgeoisie closely linked to the Austrians’ mentality and milieu. Biedermeier was a heterogeneous style that made use of elements of Classicism, Romanticism and Realism. Stroy moved from Vienna to Zagreb as early as 1830 and stayed in Zagreb until 1842. He painted portraits across Croatia, at the castles and manors of Croatia’s northern region of Zagorje, and the towns of Varaždin and Samobor. Whilst in Croatia, he produced some eighty paintings of unequal quality, portraits, allegories of four continents for Trakošćan Castle and several sacral compositions.
From amongst his often typified portraits featuring fashionable details and elegant figure placements, Mihael Stroy’s A Portrait of Senator Kavić from 1839 kept at the National Museum of Modern Art is to be singled out as one of the pinnacles of Stroy’s achievements in portraiture during his stay in Zagreb. The way light radiates from the incarnadine skin tones and from the dark brown hair of the senator lends a certain liveliness to the official portrait. The richness of his blacks which are shaded to depict different materials and which contrast with the whiteness of the senator’s shirt indicates that Stroy possessed perfect mastery of painterly techniques. What is more, the red velvet armchair is complementary to the green background. Stroy brought to life the portrait of this classically placed senator with the help of his colour-specific virtuosity and creativity.

Tekst: Dajana Vlaisavljević, muzejska savjetnica Nacionalnog muzeja moderne umjetnosti © Nacionalni muzej moderne umjetnosti, Zagreb
Translated by: Ana Janković
Foto: Goran Vranić © Nacionalni muzej moderne umjetnosti, Zagreb

Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Tivoli, 1839

Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf
Tivoli, 1839
watercolour on paper
37,3×53 cm
MG-97

Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf (1770-1841) was a self-taught painter and teacher at Osijek’s City Drawing School who, having arrived from Brno via Vienna, settled in Slavonia. He also gave his son, painter of landscape idylls and ruins Hugo Conrad von Hötzendorf (1870?-1869), his first art lessons.
Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf acquired his painterly skills indirectly through book illustrations, and this at a time dominated by Classicism. The basic principles of the style equalled the ideas of ‘classical beauty’ reflected in the fixed proportions of visual representations depicting motifs from antiquity. Conceiving ideal compositions is what differentiates Classicism from Romanticism, whose version of escapism drew artistically on the immediate observance of nature.
Tivoli was one of the more frequent classicist motifs of many painters from Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) onwards. Johann Heinrich Tischbein’s (1751-1829) painting Goethe in the Roman Campagna was an example of escapism and an invitation of sorts to wealthy intellectuals to visit ancient Rome as part of their Grand Tour of Europe.
In his painting Tivoli from 1839 Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf adheres to the classicist linear arrangement of the foreground and the background, and a calm grey-green colour scheme. He painted the details of the vegetation minutely, which helped him to petrify the scene in which his dynamic presentation of a clamorous waterfall stands out as an exception. The airiness of the medium of watercolour helped Hötzendorf to soften the rigidity of the scene.

Text: Dajana Vlaisavljević, museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Ana Janković
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb