Modern Art - Austria / II. Republic of Austria 2014 - 62 Euro Cent

In what great contrast is the glamorous appearance of this lady of society to the irritating and nervous expression on her face - whether Isabella Reisser with this portrait of Anton Romakos, which became in 2014 the stamp motif of the Austrian Post Office, was probably satisfied? Romako, an Austrian landscape, history and portrait painter who was born near Vienna in 1832 as an illegitimate son of a manufacturer and Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller denied any talent while studying at the Vienna Academy, made his name abroad first. In Austria, he was always controversial and was especially revered for his psychological portrayals as well as criticized. Romako opposed the predominance of the painting of the beautiful appearance in the style of Hans Makart, against which he did not arrive. During a long stay in Rome, he was a sought after genre painter and portrayed the leading social class. When he returned to Vienna, he found little appeal here. His way of relentlessly exposing the interior of the model and giving it a mysterious bizarre trait was not welcomed, it was accused of eccentric exaggeration and nervous operation. His early-expressionistic images, which often radiate restlessness, seldom matched the taste of his contemporaries, and yet their very subtlety paved the way for Viennese Modernism. The portrait of Isabella Reisser is seen by some as being hard on the edge of the caricature, the pointed-nosed beauty with the exaggeratedly thin waist and the striking teeth of a figure from Ibsen's drama is often said. Romako created it in 1885 together with a picture of her husband Christoph. He had come to fame as the director of the printing works produced by the daily newspaper Neue Freie Presse. He developed the first rotary printing press built in Austria, later also folding machines. In 1873 he set up the pavilion of the "Neue Freie Presse" at the World's Fair in Vienna and produced a newspaper in front of the public. Soon after, he founded his own printing company. His wife Isabella, born in Vienna in 1843, was the one who continued to do so after his death in 1892, and her sons joined the company, now called "Christoph Reissers Sons". Isabella and her sons became k during this time. u. k. Court suppliers appointed. It was always one of the country's top printing houses. Christoph Reisser, who had a close relationship with many artists, was a good friend of Anton Romako. The two portraits may have been commissioned works. The "Portrait Isabella Reisser" was sold by Reisser's grandson to the collector Rudolf Leopold and today belongs to the Leopold Museum Private Foundation.