Mengs, Anton Raphael. 1728 Aussig/ Bohemia-1779... Lot 490

Mengs, Anton Raphael. 1728 Aussig/ Bohemia-1779 Rome. Portrait of Ismael Mengs. Oil on canvas, doubl., restored, new stretcher, 51,5 x 44,5 cm, classicist frame, 64 x 56,5 cm. The portrait of the father of the painter Anton Raphael Mengs, the painter Ismael Mengs, in the present representation without a wig, forms a landmark in the artistic development of the painter. By turning away from the type of courtly portraiture in the rendering of the sitter to a sober realist conception and rendering of physiognomy, Mengs achieved a unique immediacy and intensity of expression. (cf. Roettgen 2003). The catalog raisonné presented by Steffi Roettgen mentions two versions in Mengs' own hand in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum Berlin (lost) as well as The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (WV 221, 222). Work offered here is presumably identical with WV no. WK 2, copy circa 1800. In the digital WV of the University of Heidelberg in cooperation with the author of the WV, the painting is listed under no. DW_222/WK_01. Prov.: Verst. Christie's New York 8.11.1985, ot 126; Verst. Hampel Munich 2003, 2010. Mengs, Anton Raphael Portrait of Ismael Mengs, oil on canvas, doubl., rest. new frame.