Rocznik Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie (2(38).2013)

432

Art of the Nineteenth Century

among this group of artist friends. The latter, made shortly after Müllers two portraits, on
19 March 1836, shows the subject en trois quarts towards the viewer, almost en face, with
a slightly bent head and half-closed eyelids. Its method of depicting the young man, with an
inner autonomy and no contact whatsoever between him and the viewer, makes it an excel-
lent friendship portrait. In presenting his friend with slightly closed eyelids, the author of the
drawing has created an impression of inner focus and detachment from reality, which Lankheit
stresses.63 It is equally difficult to determine at this time whether the man is Franz Ittenbach
or Raphael Schall, as it is with the portrait by Carl Müller.
Another riddle is the identity of the man in the drawing. A potential tip is his similarity to the
young man in Schall’s The Exaltation of the Holy Cross (fig. 10) of 1847 in the church in Lisięcice
near Głubczyce,64 who stands near the bishop, on the right side of the painting. In my opinion
it represents Ernst Deger, even though his identification is also based mostly on an analysis of
the connections between the figures in the portrait. This canvas is a particular type of Nazarene
friendship portrait, which appears in historical and, even more so, religious compositions.
One of its earliest examples is Overbeck’s self-presentation in the company of Franz Pforr in
the painting of The Raising of Lazarus65 of 1808, on the left edge of the composition. Two years
later the same artist painted himself again with a group of friends from the Brotherhood of
Saint Luke in Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem,66 this time with all the members of the brotherhood.
According to Anton Merk, such portraits are “on the one hand a badge of friendship and on the
other an expression of a desired connection to religious representations.”67
A similar approach is expressed in the painting The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which
shows the finding of the most precious relic for the Catholic Church, in which Schall
presents himself on the left edge of the composition with a group of friends from the
Düsseldorf academy, with idealized facial features bringing to mind their youthful portraits.
Standing next to him is probably Franz Ittenbach, a figure similar to his self-portrait made
in the 1830s,68 and a bit further, a partly visible, difficult-to-identify man, who somewhat
resembles Carl Müller. On the other side of the cross, near Bishop Makarios, we would
like to see the man holding a candle as Ernst Deger, a close friend of Schall’s, but his early
portraits, such as the oils by Wilhelm Schadow69 and Franz Ittenbach70 or the engraved

63 Lankheit, op. cit., esp. p. 128.
64 See Joanna Lubos-Kozieł, “Wiarą tchnące obrazy.” Studia z dziej ów malarstwa religijnego na Śląsku w XIX
wieku Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2004), p. 95, fig. 7; I am extremely grateful to Dr Joanna
Lubos-Kozieł for giving me a photograph of this painting.
65 Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte der Hansestadt Lübeck; see Johann Friedrich Overbeck 1789-
1869. Zur zweihundertsten Wiederkehr seines Geburtstages, Andreas Blühm and Gerhard Gerkens, eds, with essays
by Frank Büttner, Rachel Esner, Jens Christian Jensen, M. Piotr Michałowski, Ulrich Pietsch, exh. cat., Museum
für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte der Hansestadt Lübeck - Behnhaus, Lübeck, 25 June - 3 September 1989, (Lübeck:
[s.n.], 1989), p. 104, cat. no. 6.
66 The painting does not survive; see Die Nazarener, op. cit., p. 152, fig.
67 Ibid.
68 See Wilhelm Neuß, “Franz Ittenbachs künstlerische Entwicklung. Zur fünfzigsten Wiederkehr seines
Todestages,” Kunstgabe des Ver.für christliche Kunst im Erzbistum Köln, 3 (1929), p. 13, fig. 16.
69 On 12 May 1998 at Lempertz auction in Cologne; auction cat., p. 288, fig. Undated portrait, most likely
from the 1830s.
70 1839, Louvre, Paris; see Kunst des ig. Jahrhunderts..., op. cit., p. 97, fig. 42.