(Vienna 1812–1905)
Self-Portrait, 1886, signed, dated R. Alt (1)886, verso old notes about provenance on the mount, watercolour on paper, 35.5 x 25.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection Louise Alt (1859-1941), Vienna, artist’s daughter;
Collection Gabriele von Miller-Aichholz (1859-1921), Vienna;
Sale, Albert Kende, Vienna, 10 December 1927, lot 231;
Since then Private Collection, Vienna.

Compare:
Self-Portrait of the Artist, 1886, Albertina Vienna, inventory no. 30720.

The important Austrian watercolourist and landscape painter Rudolf von Alt was particularly interested in producing self-portraits. Walter Koschatzky has noticed 17 self-portraits in his catalogue raisonné, which were created irregularly over a period of seven decades. Rudolf von Alt painted the first ones in the 1830s, and then only again from 1883 after he had turned 60 years old.
From then on, however, he dealt artistically with himself at least once a year, which is a documentation of aging and critical personality analysis that is unique in Austrian painting of the 19th century. Von Alt painted the last portrait in 1904, one year before his death. The majority of these images are now in the collections of the Albertina and the Wien Museum.

As a result, it is a minor sensation that, after more than 100 years in private hands, a previously unknown and hitherto unpublished self-portrait of Rudolf von Alt has come to the market. It is dated 1886 and could represent the last of the three portraits that we already know to have been created in this year (Koschatzky Nr. 86/01, /02 und /03). His hair has become even more silvery in comparison to earlier images, interspersed with fine blue strands that match the strong blue of his eyes. The artist is sitting square on to the viewer, wearing a black suit with a waistcoat, white shirt and black bow tie. He is sitting in his studio or salon, the outlines of a picture wall are dimly discernible. The entire focus of the light and painterly subtlety is on his face, with its vividly modulated features and the detailed drawing of facial expressions. The artist does not look at the viewer: his gaze passes us by, lost in thought, as if he were looking into another, invisible world of memories and images.