Im Anfang war der Mord. Johann Michael Rottmayrs Beweinung Abels im Belvedere (Curator's Choice, Nr. 3, 2022)

Im Anf ang war der Mord. 
Johann Michael Rottmay r s 
Bew einung Abels 
im Belvedere 
MAIKE HOHN 
# 
3 
/ 
2022CURATOR’S CHOICE

Abstract

This essay explores Johann Michael Rottmayr’s The Lamentation of Abel in the collection of the Belvedere in Vienna. It offers an analysis of the subject and style of the painting, focusing in particular on this recurrent subject in the artist’s oeuvre and its origins in the workshop of the Venice-based master Johann Carl Loth. For a long time the latter was the artist’s teacher; by his own admission Rottmayr spent thirteen years working in the Munich-born painter’s studio. His artistic model is especially evident in the figure of the supine male nude, which Rottmayr uses in this painting to represent the dead Abel. Among those in the Loth circle, this motif developed into a veritable trademark. The history of the painting’s ownership—its provenance and arrival at the collection—as well as findings from the restoration of The Lamentation of Abel, are discussed in the text on the basis of archive material. The painting entered the Belvedere’s holdings in 1948; the previous owner of the work and its companion piece, The Sacrifice of Isaac (Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Alte Galerie), was the aristocratic Harrach family. For a time the matching pictures were on display in the family’s publicly accessible painting gallery in their city palace on the Freyung in Vienna’s city center. The extensive and high-quality Harrach picture collection was housed there in the second half of the nineteenth century; today it can be seen at Schloss Rohrau near Bruck an der Leitha, Lower Austria.

Keywords:

Johann Michael Rottmayr – Johann Carl Loth – Venice – School of Loth – Motif Transfer – Old Testament – Typology – Provenance – Collection history – Harrach – Vienna

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This text is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). This license allows anyone to download, reuse, re-print, modify, distribute and/or copy the contributions. The works must be properly attributed to its author(s). You must also include a link to the license, and state whether modifications have been made. Copyright for illustrations may be held by individuals or institutions other than the Belvedere, Vienna, and the author(s). These do not fall under the Creative Commons License.

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