Johann Heinrich Tischbein the Elder

(Haina 1722–1789 Kassel)
A portrait of a lady dressed in blue and fur,
oil on canvas, 62.5 x 52 cm, framed

We are grateful to Anna-Charlotte Flohr for confirming the attribution.
Her extensive written report accompanies the present lot.

This elegant portrait of a young woman, depicted half-length and attired in a luminous blue velvet pelerine, edged with soft grey fur, is a newly rediscovered work by Johann Heinrich Tischbein the Elder, known as the Kasseler Tischbein. The artist’s command of texture is evident in the subtle rendering of shimmering satin, fine lace, and the soft density of velvet and fur. This interplay of material richness and painterly delicacy reveals Tischbein’s sensitivity to the conventions of court portraiture, filtered through the artistic lessons he absorbed in Paris under Charles van Loo, and in Venice and Rome during his formative Italian sojourn between 1748 and 1751.

Although the sitter’s identity remains unknown, her age – around twenty-five years – together with the refinement of her features and costume, suggests a lady of noble or patrician background within the Kassel courtly milieu. Tischbein’s patrons, Landgrave Wilhelm VIII and his successor Landgrave Frederick II and the cultivated circle of Hessian nobility, valued portraits such as this, both as likenesses and as affirmations of status, grace, and cultivation.

The painting exemplifies Tischbein at his best: the characteristic liveliness of expression, the subtle atmospheric tonality, and the artist’s mastery of fabric and flesh. Anna-Charlotte Flohr, who examined the work in the original, has confirmed its authenticity and placed it firmly within the mature Kassel period of Tischbein’s career, dating it to the late 1750’s or early 1760’s. At this time, Tischbein had established himself as court painter to Landgrave Wilhelm VIII (appointed 1753) and was simultaneously forging a reputation for refined portraiture, informed by the French and Italian models he studied abroad, yet unmistakably individualised by his own hand.

Formerly in a private collection, the work has remained unpublished until its recent rediscovery. Its emergence adds significantly to the known corpus of Tischbein’s portraits of women, which often oscillate between courtly grandeur and an intimate, almost private tenderness.

Tischbein is the author of important history paintings yet today is primarily known for his courtly and elegant portraits.