International studio (27.1905/1906(1906))

Exhibition of Miniatures at Vienna

PRINCESS KARL PAAR, BY ROBERT THEER
NEE COUNTESS CAVRIA-NI
(1783-1801)
(By permission of Count Karl Kuefstein)

to be the three Princesses Radziwill, is the
finest. But much new light has been quite
recently thrown on Füger by Ferdinand
Laban, in an article upon him in the “Jahr-
buch der Iv. preuszischen Kunstsammlungen,”
and in it he shows that this miniature at
Berlin is wrongly titled; the portraits being
those of the daughters of Count Thun-
Hohenstein, whose house in Vienna was the
centre of all talent. Füger, as theprot'eg'e of
the English Ambassador, would have had no
difficulty in obtaining entrance to the Count’s
salon and in holding his position there, for
his merits were generally acknowledged, both
artistically and personally. The three Coun-
tesses represented are Elizabeth, who mar-
ried Andreas, Count Razumovsky, the friend
of Beethoven, to whom the musician dedi
cated many of his works; Countess Christine,
who became the wife of Prince Carl von Lich-
nowsky (she was a great pianist, and Beet-
hoven likewise dedicated several works to her;
her husband was also a patronof the musician);
and Marie Caroline, who afterwards became
Lady Guilford.
In the Vienna collections there are many

Greek cabinet in the palace of Schönbrunn, which
she had built, is hung with miniatures done by
three of the Archduchesses, her daughters, Maria
Anne, Maria Christine, and Maria Antoinette.
These must have been painted when the princesses
were very young, for Maria Antoinette was only
fifteen when she became Dauphiness of France.
Towards the end of the eighteenth Century
miniature painting on both sides of the Rhine
received a great impetus, and the fame of Vienna,
both for her Imperial Academy and her Imperial
Porcelain Works, attracted many who were filled with
true artistic instincts. Heinrich Füger, born at
Heilbronn in 1751, came to the Capital from Dres-
den in 1774. At the instance of his patron, Sir
Robert Murray Iveith, who was later transferred
from the Court of Dresden to that of Vienna, Füger
remained two years in the city, and then, having
received a prize, went to Italy, where he remained
some years, and returned in 1783 as Vice-director
of the Imperial Academy, of which he after-
wards became director. Düring his first stay in
Vienna, Füger painted many miniatures, being
everywhere recommended by Sir Robert Keith,
but his best were painted after 1788. Of these a
portrait group, now in the Berlin Gallery, and said


COUNT KHEVENHÜLLER BY J. B. ANKER
(Figdor Collection)


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