Hans Makart (1840 - 1884)
When Hans Makart moved from Munich to Vienna to take up a highly official appointment in 1869, he was by no means an unknown quantity. The previous year he had achieved extraordinary success with two cycles of paintings (Modern Cupids, and Plague in Florence) which were shockingly unusual for their time. This related to their chromaticity as much as to their content, which bore no relation to contemporary decorative paintings of accepted historical textbook character. In Vienna, it was hoped Hans Makart would bring a breath of fresh air to the Ringstrasse which was then undergoing construction. At first official commissions had to wait, as private clients from industry, business and the upper...