Self-Portrait

Von Maron was born in Vienna, but lived in Rome from 1756, where he continued to train under Anton Raphael Mengs. In 1776 he reformed the Viennese Academy of Art, presumably the reason for his being raised to the peerage by Empress Maria Theresa. The Berlin picture dates from a period when the painter was becoming increasingly isolated. His works were much in demand until the early 1790s, but then the public in his adoptive Roman home began to prefer the art of Maria Angelica Kauffmann. Von Maron turns to us out of the picture with a calm and thoughtful expression. He is clutching a number of paintbrushes to his chest in an unpretentious fashion. Here the Baroque pose is abandoned in favour of a psychological approach, which brings the work close to the portraits of Anton Graff. Von Maron’s paintings combine Neo-Classical formal austerity with a sophisticated sense of colour.| Prestel Museum Guides - Gemäldegalerie Berlin, 2017