Self-portrait of the artist with his brother

Few artists embody an international character as strikingly as the Black Forest artist Franz Xaver Winterhalter. Born to an artisan in provincial Baden in the early nineteenth century, he soon became widely renowned for his portraits of European royalty and aristocrats. He was known as the 'painter of princes' and travelled tirelessly to courts in France, Belgium, Great Britain, Austria, Spain and Portugal in pursuit of commissions, which he and his younger brother Hermann then executed in their Paris studio. In 1870 the Winterhalter brothers returned to their native Baden, having run a flourishing business in the French capital since 1834. While Franz visited the clients and did portrait drawings of their subjects, Hermann ran the studio and was in charge of the apprentices. Although Hermann did produce paintings of his own, he was frequently occupied making copies of highly sought-after compositions by his brother. In the end Hermann became so adept at imitating Franz's style that to this day it is barely possible to definitively identify work as that of either one or the other.

Winterhalter's portraits could be described as Romantic idealisations, many of which have striking depictions of precious materals. As a specialist in portrait commissions, his interest was not in highlighting any striking features in his sitters but rather in creating a flattering, softened image, which prompted contemporaries such as Eugène Delacroix to dismiss him as someone who only painted to please. Despite being one of the wealthiest, most renowned artists of his age, Winterhalter largely fell into obscurity after his death. A large proportion of his works are still in the collections of his aristocratic clients, which accounts for their relative rarity in public museums.

In comparison to their extensive list of portraits, the self-portrait plays a very modest part in the oeuvre of the Winterhalter brothers. One of their most famous is this 1840 double portrait, which has an intimate character that calls to mind the Romantic tradition of friendship portraits. It is an empathetic depiction of the different roles and characters of the two men, seen here close together against a dark background. Franz Xaver, described by contemporaries as extremely charming, is portrayed here in a peaked cap, gazing out of the painting with a winning smile. He is shown drawing in a sketchbook, which he is steadying with his left hand. The composition suggests that - in keeping with the brothers' division of roles - Franz Xaver is at this very moment busily capturing a likeness of the viewer. Hermann, standing behind him, looks on admiringly, his arm resting affectionately on his older brother's shoulder. Hermann's elegant clothing and the cigar held loosely in his right hand mark him out as the worldly city-dweller, even though he had only recently come to Paris at his brother's request. The spontaneous look of the portrait and the indications of certain actions give this composition the air of genre painting: a development that was to be of very considerable significance to French portraiture in the nineteenth century.

Despite the informal nature of the scene, this double portrait has been carefully composed and executed with great painterly skill. The pink padding in the foreground forms the basis of a pyramidal pictorial structure, whose strong lines are leavened by the effective distribution of light and shade. We see here Franz Xaver Winterhalter's outstanding gift for portraying fabrics and gleaming, shiny surfaces, which significantly contributed to his popularity with his clients. Close scrutiny of the brothers' features and hands reveals certain stylistic differences, which suggests that each of the two brothers painted these parts of his own self-portrait. While Franz, drawing on his experience, deftly defined his features and accentuated them with highlights, Hermann's brushwork is softer in appearance, with the result that both his face and his right hand look less differentiated. This unusual instance of a double portrait by two gifted brothers may well have been intended as a pictorial greeting to their relatives at home in the Black Forest. Having long remained in the family's possession, in 1960 this painting came to the collection of the Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, which is also home to another four paintings by the two brothers.