(Salzburg 1840–1884 Vienna)
Portrait of the Singer Emilie Tagliana, circa 1875, oil on panel, 104.6 x 66.8 cm, framed, minor damage,(W)

Provenance:
Emilie Tagliana, Contessa Caldara-Monti, Milan (1854-1920s);
Italian private collection.

Catalogued in:
Gerbert Frodl, Hans Makart, Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde, published by Provinz 2013, CR 309e, p. 184.

We are grateful to Dr. Gerbert Frodl for his assistance in cataloguing this work.

When Hans Makart moved from Munich to Vienna to take up a highly official appointment in 1869, he was by no means an unknown quantity. The previous year he had achieved extraordinary success with two cycles of paintings (Modern Cupids, and Plague in Florence) which were shockingly unusual for their time. This related to their chromaticity as much as to their content, which bore no relation to contemporary decorative paintings of accepted historical textbook character. In Vienna, it was hoped this painter would bring a breath of fresh air to the Ringstrasse which was then undergoing construction. At first official commissions had to wait, as private clients from industry, business and the upper classes were immediately interested in him. He created vast areas of painted décor for salons, dining rooms etc. in Viennese palaces, and quickly became the most sought-after portrait artist in the imperial metropolis. His portraits of Viennese society ladies and actresses embody the splendour and theatre-loving age of which Makart became the undisputed representative.
The portrait of the singer Emilie Tagliana (born 1854) was probably executed during one of her many guest appearances in Vienna, in either 1875 or 1876. The soprano is portrayed in costume for the role of Mercedes in Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen. She sang this role at the court opera eighteen times between October 1875 and May 1878. She was clearly very popular with the Viennese audiences, appearing in a total of 136 performances at the court opera between 1875 and 1878 - in Masquerade and Rigoletto by G. Verdi, in The Hugenots by von G. Meyerbeer, and many other operas. Eventually she married a Count Caldara-Monte in Milan and died there in the 1920s.
A comparison with photographs shows clearly that the portrait is very good likeness of the singer, the similarity not limited to her characteristic chin. The singer is seated in a chair, nonchalantly leaning on its arm. The dark, intense colours, with red and black dominating, draw the viewer’s attention to the woman’s face with its expressive mouth and eyes, and to the ringed hands. Makart’s painterly signature is unmistakably expressed in the masterly and lavish method of depicting the fabric, the reds in the drapery and dress, and the black of the mantilla. Moreover, the contrast between the impasto application of colour and the fine surface of the skin is well considered, and adopted as a painterly means of expression. As far as we know, Makart painted at least one further portrait of the singer (see Dorotheum Art Auction, 2 June 2005, no. 102). Dr. Gerbert Frodl