Portrait of Count Haubold von Einsiedel

The nobility in nineteenth-century Saxony was well served by the portraitist Ferdinand von Rayski. Three generations of the Einsiedel family had their portraits painted by him at their home, Schloß Milke, in Saxony. This was where Rayski also painted the portrait of the young Count Haubold (1844–1868) who was to die in early manhood. No emblems of his status indicate the sitter’s social rank. His dress is plain and formal, yet somehow careless. The seated pose, which is only hinted at, is relaxed as befits the portrait of an eleven-year-old. Nevertheless the choice of a half-length portrait showing the boy’s self-confident posture with slightly bent arms does evoke formal Baroque portraiture. Strict attention to the axes of the composition and the monumental way the space is filled define the overall structure as in the portrait of Christine von Schönberg. The use of colour fields sets it apart from the precision painting of the Biedermeier period, and the muted, earthy, almost monochrome tonality is reminiscent of Courbet’s palette.