(Trento 1755–1837)
Portrait of Ignaz Klang-Egger, 1827,
oil on canvas, 71 x 58 cm , framed

Inscribed and dated on the reverse: Eques de Lampi junior/Anno 1827

We are grateful to Roberto Pancheri for confirming the attribution after examining the present painting in the original.

Johann Baptist Lampi the Younger received his training under the tutelage of his father Johann Baptist Lampi the Elder, whose success in various European courts made the father and son among the most sought after portraitists of the eighteenth century. Lampi the Younger began his career in Vienna at the 'Akademie der Bildenden Künste' under Heinrich Füger and Hubert Maurer, before sojourning to St. Petersburg with his father, where they both executed portraits of members of the court of Catherine II.
The sitter, Ignaz Klang-Egger was one of the most successful Viennese antiquarians of his time. At the age of 21 he became an apprentice in his uncle’s bookshop which he inherited after his death, in 1839. Thereafter he took over a known antiquarian and publishing bookshop. After some business related difficulties he had to sell his company in 1868. In 1889 he died in Baden near Vienna (see G. Hupfer, Zur Geschichte des antiquarischen Buchhandels in Wien, thesis, Vienna 2003 pp. 79-80).