Portrait Magdalena Plach

In 1869 Emperor Franz Joseph brought Hans Makart to Vienna, and a year later this portrait made his name there. The sitter is Magdalena Plach, wife of the Viennese art dealer Georg Plach. Makart set her in strict profile and looked up at her from quite low down, so her face stands out against the pale, cloudy background almost like a silhouette. Her white dress, with its full sleeves and pale blue sash, gives her bulk in the frame. One hand holds her gloves and a small embroidered bag, and the other rests on dark carved furniture. After this, the Belvedere says, women of Vienna's rising middle class all wanted a portrait by him. Their husbands were the industrialists, merchants and bankers building grand houses along the new Ringstrasse boulevard. In the corner he signed his full name and the year, 1870.