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Portrait of an Unknown Man

Johann Baptist von Lampi the Elder

Basic information

ID: Ж-3904
Author: Johann Baptist von Lampi the Elder
Name: Portrait of an Unknown Man
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire
Technique: oil painting
Material: canvas oil
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 39.5 x 30.5

Additionally

Type: painting
Genre: portraiture
Plot: Portrait
Provenance: Lviv Historical Museum
Exposition: Potocki Palace

Information about author

Author: Johann Baptist von Lampi the Elder
Artist's lifetime: 1751–1830
Country: Austria
Biography: Johann Baptist von Lampi the Elder was a renowned 18th-century European portrait painter. He was the son of his first teacher, the monumental artist Matteo Lampi, and the father of the painters Johann Baptist Lampi the Younger and Franz Xaver Lampi. During his early period of oeuvre, the artist mainly worked on altar paintings in Verona, Trident, Romeno, and Innsbruck. In 1783, he moved to Vienna, where he gained fame as a portraitist. Having quickly become popular in Europe, he received numerous commissions and portrayed representatives of noble families. He worked as a court artist for Vienna, Warsaw, and St. Petersburg courts. In 1786, Johann Baptist von Lampi was appointed professor at the Vienna Academy of Arts.

Object description

The identity of the portrayed person in the work "Portrait of an Unknown Man" has not yet been established; however, it can be assumed that the painting was created as an oil sketch for one of the unidentified portraits by Lampi the Elder. The canvas was stretched over a study for the portrait of Joseph Liesganig on an authentic stretcher. This portrait is painted in a psychological genre, in an academic style, characterised by adherence to the canon established by recognised authorities of European academies. The artist executed the work in a restrained palette of brown and ochre tones, with a stroke of deep blue. The face is rendered with delicate brushstrokes in pink and olive tones. The person, depicted against an ochre background, is shown at bust length, turned slightly to the right in a ¾ view, almost frontal. He is a young man with regular facial features, short wavy chestnut hair, and small sideburns. According to the fashion of the time, the young man is dressed in a blue and brown scarf wrapped around his neck and a dark brown camisole with a high collar.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Portrait of an Unknown Man

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