(Urfahr 1813–1890 Vienna)
Portrait of His Son Moritz as a Page Boy, c. 1877/78, signed Reiter, oil on canvas, 62.5 x 49.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Sale, Kunstsalon A. Pisko, Vienna, 15 April 1913, lot 40;
Sale, Sotheby’s, London, 22 June 1983, lot 214;
Private Collection, Vienna.

Catalogued in:
Alice Strobl, Johann Baptist Reiter, Vienna, Munich 1963, p. 101, no. 370.

We are grateful to Dr. Lothar Schultes for the scholarly advice.

Counterpart to lot 545

These two paintings were previously known only by their titles. They show the painter’s son, born in 1862, and his daughter, two years younger, as a page boy and a young noblewoman. The age of the two suggests that the pictures were painted around 1877/79. The style of the signature is also indicative of this period, corresponding to the signatures of the roughly contemporaneous paintings The Apple Peeler and The Hemp Trade (Lothar Schultes, Johann Baptist Reiter, Salzburg 2013, ill. 322, 372). The birth of Reiter’s children triggered an intense creative phase for him. Numerous works show Lexi as an infant and a young girl maturing into beauty. One painting in particular, which exists only as a photograph today, provides a good point of comparison. Lexi is shown at about twelve years old, with pigtails and straw hat, picking flowers (Schultes, ill. 316). Reiter created several paintings around this time which depict his children in various roles, for example as classical figures with bow and arrows or, as in the present case, as a princely couple in rich fantasy costume. Strobl also references a picture depicting Moritz in Spanish costume, and we can assume that a counterpart showing Lexi as a Spaniard also exists. Reiter is here following the trend towards historical costume that was characteristic of the Gründerzeit, such as the pageant portrayed by Hans Makart for the silver wedding anniversary of the imperial couple. The costume appears Renaissance-themed, and Reiter could also have adapted historical models for the girl’s necklace and headdress. He, like Franz von Stuck later, was one of the first painters who virtually idolised their beautiful daughters. During this period he turned to an extremely precise style of painting, which reached its apex with his 1879 self-portrait at the age of 66 (Schultes, ill. 359). Thus it is not only the children’s face and hands, but also their hair, jewellery, and costumes that are rendered with meticulous care, combined with intense colour. This all distinguishes Reiter’s late work from his contemporaries and testifies to his unflinching independence.