(Urfahr 1813–1890 Vienna)
Sisterly Love, signed J. B. Reiter, oil on canvas, 25 x 19 cm, framed

We are grateful to Dr. Lothar Schultes for the scientific assistance.

Provenance:
Gallery Krugerstraße 12, 1978.
Where acquired in 1978.

Compare:
Lothar Schultes, Johann Baptist Reiter, published by OÖ. Landesmuseum and NORDICO Stadtmuseum Linz, Salzburg 2013, p. 207, ill. 293.

The pictorial worlds created by the painter Johann Baptist Reiter, who was born in Linz, challenge the generally accepted ideas of the Biedermeier period. In the 1850s and early 1860s, he developed his own approach to child portraits, which was characterised by naturalness and emotional authenticity that, by and large, was absent from the portraits of children that had been common up to that time. In themselves, these pictures “from the world of the child” attracted great attention among his contemporaries and became one of his trademarks. He regularly showed work at the exhibitions held by Vienna’s Academy, displaying intimate portraits and genre-like, multi-figure children’s scenes.

The lot shown here also belongs to this group of works. An older sister is holding her younger, toddler sibling on her lap. They are sitting on a step in front of the entrance to a house and the young child is confidently nestling her head into her older sister’s shoulder. The intimacy of the children outshines the everyday life embodied by the house entrance in the background and seems to underscore the theme of the love between siblings.
Both children look directly at the viewer. Their physiognomies are reminiscent of Reiter’s painting Mother and two Children, which is in private ownership. Dr. Lothar Schultes therefore suggests a dating around 1865.