Lot 25 Girl
Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 36.5 x 28 cm
Signed upper right “G. Max”
Confirmation of authenticity by Professor Tomas Vlcek attached.
Consulted with Professor Jaromir Zemina and Associate Professor Maria Mzykova, expert on the artist.
Gabriel Cornelius von Max was a Prague-born Austrian painter. His first large canvas was painted in 1858 while he was a student at the Prague Academy. He continued his studies at the Viennese Academy of Art with Karl von Blaas, Karl Mayer, Christian Ruben and Carl Wurzinger. From 1863 to 1867 he studied at the Munich Academy with Karl Theodor von Piloty, and also Hans Makart and Franz Defregger. His first critical success was in 1867 with the painting \"Martyr at the Cross\": that painting transformed the \"Unglücksmalerei\" (dark palette) of Piloty into a religious-mystical symbolism using a psychological rendering of its subject.
Gabriel von Max was a significant artist to emerge from the Piloty School, because he abandoned the themes of the Grunderzeitliche (genre and history), in order to develop an allegorical-mystical pictorial language, which became typical of Secessionist Art.
The largest collection of the work of Gabriel von Max in the United States is held by the Jack Daulton Collection in Los Altos Hills, California.
This is the last item in the auction.