(Vienna 1839–1897)
Count Miklos Pál Esterhazy de Galántha with his Hounds, signed, dated, W. Richter 1882, oil on canvas, 79 x 95 cm, framed

The Austrian painter Wilhelm Richter began his artistic career as a student of Leopold Kupelwieser and Johann Nepomuk Ender at Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts and became a well-known genre painter. The majority of his work is comprised of military and hunting scenes, depictions of horses, and portraits.
By the age of 24, he was already a war painter in Italy, where the uprisings against Austrian rule were violently suppressed. The Museum of Military History in Vienna contains several of Richter’s paintings through which he recorded his impressions of the war.
In the 1870s he was invited to Gödöllo in Hungary several times, where the Austrian Empress Elisabeth often stayed at the castle to hunt. It is quite possible that he made the acquaintance of Count Miklós Pál Esterházy de Galántha, who is immortalised in the present lot, during these visits.
The Hungarian Esterházy family was part of aristocracy from the end of the 17th century. Miklós Pál grew up in Vienna and Westphalia and showed great equestrian talent in his youth. As a highly esteemed participant in hunting parties, he was regularly invited to Gödöllö by Empress Elisabeth.
He founded the First Westphalian Thoroughbred Stud Farm near his castle Nord-kirchen in Westphalia, along with other aristocratic breeders. For a time this became the largest racing stable in West Germany.
The Austrian Jockey Club in Vienna was founded through his efforts in 1866. He became known as ‘Sport Niki’ because of his passion for horse racing.
His second passion was theatre and he had a magnificent theatre built on his Hungarian estate for the entertainment of his guests.
Esterházy is depicted here in red tailcoat accompanied by two beagles, English hunting dogs. In contrast to Esterházy’s daring hunts and races, Richter here captures a moment of tranquillity in which horse and rider pass a waterhole at a leisurely pace.