Charles VI and Gundacker Count Althann

In 1728 Naples belonged to the Austrian Habsburgs, as it had since their troops took the city in 1707. So when Emperor Charles VI wanted a grand painting to mark the new order of his picture gallery, he could turn to the most famous painter in the city, who was now his subject.

Charles had gathered Habsburg paintings from several residences, among them the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, and hung them anew in the Stallburg, part of his palace in Vienna. The man in charge was Gundacker, Count Althann, his director of buildings and a close favourite. Solimena shows him kneeling to hand the emperor the inventory of the gallery, with allegorical figures crowding round. Solimena worked in Naples, far from both men, and the faces were painted into the canvas in Vienna by the court portraitist Johann Gottfried Auerbach. The heads of the emperor and the count that we see today are his.