(Dresden 1834–1892 Vienna)
Blind Beggar, signed, dated Leopold Carl Müller 1878, oil on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, framed, (Rei)

Compare Literature:
Katalog des Künstlerischen Nachlasses Leopold C. Müller’s. K. K. Professor der Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Wien. Verlag von H.O. Miethke, Vienna 1893, no. 41 (with ill.) and 54.
Herbert Zemen, Leopold Carl Müller 1834–1892. Ein Künstlerbildnis, self-published, Vienna, 2001, p. 333f (Letter 252: Müller to Ebers), p. 571, p. 590 (8.). Herbert Zemen, Leopold Carl Müller 1834–1892. Sein künstlerischer Nachlass, private print, Vienna, 2011, p. 96.

Leopold Carl Müller undertook a total of nine trips, lasting many months, to and through Egypt between 1874/5 and 1886, and is viewed as the Austrian painter of the Orient (“Egypt Müller”). The artist often dealt with the theme “Blind (Arabic) Beggar”. In addition to several preserved preparatory sketches and studies, there are also two completed and dated paintings, which are also mentioned in the artist’s papers. Müller already seems to have worked on the two versions during his fourth trip to Egypt (October 1877 to March 1878). The older of the two is the oil painting presented here, which is dated to 1878. For the following year, the annals record the completion of another painting, “Blind Arabic Beggar”, which should be identical with the painting signed and dated to 1879 (oil on canvas, 70.1 x 120.3 cm; Auction Christie’s New York 1993, lot no. 79, “Blind Beggar”). Both pictures differ from one another in their formal composition and above all in the altered figure of the beggar. The older work presented here, which presumably depicts a street scene in Cairo, also exists as a pen and ink drawing produced by Müller, as indicated by the correspondence of the artist (dated 17.11.1877). The drawing is reproduced in full-page vertical format in the two-volume monumental work, Ägypten in Bild und Wort dargestellt von unseren ersten Künstlern, described by Georg Ebers, Stuttgart and Leipzig 1879/80 (vol. I, p. 299; see fig. here). A preparatory sketch, “The Blind Beggar” (oil on canvas, 43 x 63 cm, with signature stamp), which belongs to the second, later version of the beggar theme, came up for auction at the Dorotheum in 1936.

We are greatfull to Univ.-Prof. Dr. Peter Janosi for catalouging this lot.

additional image:
"Georg Ebers, Ägypten in Bild und Wort: dargestellt von unseren ersten Künstlern", Stuttgart - Leipzig, 1879, Volume I, S. 299 (‚Blinder Bettler‘)