Lot 1104 | Christ Head

GRAFF, ANTON
1736 Winterthur - 1813 Dresden


Title: Christ Head.
After the Copper Plate by Annibale Caracci (1560-1609) from the Dresden Gallery, Lost After 1945.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Mounting: Edges relined.
Measurement: 50 x 40,5cm.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.
Verso:
Signed on the canvas: "copiert nach Carachi / von A. Graff / 1799".

Certificate:
H. Börsch-Supan, Berlin, 14.07.2015 copy available.

Provenance:
Collection of Princess Luise of Anhalt-Dessau (1750-1811);
Luisium Palace, Dessau Wörlitz 1863;
Private ownership, Switzerland.


The verso of the canvas provides information about the painting and its genesis: Anton Graff, the most respected portraitist of his time with an oeuvre of more than 2,000 works, copied one of the most important paintings from the Dresden Gemäldegalerie - which, moreover, is now lost and only survives to us through the copies. Graff had painted the Christ's Head several times in the course of his life; further copies are known, as Börsch-Supan writes in his expert opinion, but are also no longer available today.

The painting is captivating in several respects: Christ looks at the viewer very sensitively, in a slightly triumphant pose. The portrait comes without outwardly visible richness or ornamentation, but achieves its effect solely through the calm and knowing gaze that seems to reveal his inner self. The composition, the lighting and the colouring are executed at the highest level - but at the same time very restrained and almost private.

This copy by Graff after Carracci can be traced in a letter to Ulrich Hegener from 1797 and was probably commissioned for the collection of Luise von Anhalt-Dessau, who had an affinity for art.