(Palermo 1825–1856 Vienna)
“Die welke Rosenknopse”, verso titled and inscribed, signed, dated Rosalia Amon 1847, oil on panel, 54 x 44.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Dorotheum, Vienna, 2 December 1969, lot 4;
Where acquired in 1969.

Exhibited:
Viennese Art Exhibition, Academy of fine arts St. Anna, Vienna, 1874 („Welke Rose“).

Rosalia Amon was one of the few women who had the opportunity to study painting at the Vienna Academy. She participated in the class given by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller and specialised in floral still lifes, which she executed hyper-realistically. In this genre painting, The Withered Rosebud, a rose is at the centre of the scene: a young girl holds a pot with a rose plant in her arms and shows her mother the prematurely wilted buds.
At first glance this scene appears to be a snapshot; it is, however, an artistic composition with multiple layers. The objects on the table in the foreground encourage the viewer to develop the story: there is a sewing kit, a medicine bottle and a silver spoon, as well as a miniature attached to a light blue silk ribbon. It could be the portrait of an older sister who, like a wilted rosebud, may be struggling with illness before she blossoms into an adult woman? On closer inspection, one also discovers the tear that glitters in the corner of the mother’s eye. It is with small gestures and allusions that Rosalia Amon inspires us to imagine entire stories from this supposed snapshot.