(Vienna 1801–1871)
Portrait of Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria (1833–1896)
at the age of 15, signed, dated A. Einsle (1)848 fecit,
oil on canvas, c. 66 x 53 cm, framed, (W)

Provenance:
Auction Albert Kende Vienna, estate of an Austrian archduke, 24 May 1921, lot 27;
Koller West, Zurich, 30 March 2011, lot 6551;
Dorotheum Vienna, 17 April 2012, lot 24.

Anton Einsle was a Viennese painter who specialised in portraits. He started his artistic education at the Academy at the age of 13 and was already working as a portraitist in his early twenties. His talent was soon recognised and brought him many commissions in Vienna. It is even said that he portrayed all of Mariahilfer’s manufacturers.
In 1832 he moved to Budapest, where he was appointed official court painter of Archduke Joseph Palatine of Hungary (1776–1847) and his wife, Duchess Maria Dorothea of Württemberg (1797–1855). They both held the artist in high esteem. After six successful years in Hungary, he returned to Vienna, where he painted members of the imperial family as well as the emperor and empress themselves. Between 1848 and 1850, the time when the present work was painted, he even had his own temporary atelier in the Hofburg Palace.
Archduke Karl Ludwig’s porcelain skin and somewhat stiff attitude in this portrait recall the traditional, classic manner of the school of Johann Baptist von Lampi. Typical of Einsle’s work of that time, the Archduke is portrayed against a fairly neutral background. Einsle’s style changed around 1850. Influenced by Daffinger and Amerling, he started depicting his subjects in a more realistic, natural way and in idealistic landscapes.
Karl Ludwig is depicted here at the age of 15, the year his brother became Emperor of Austria.