Portrait of a Boy

When Emperor Joseph II opened the imperial picture gallery to the public in 1781, he installed it here in the Upper Belvedere, free to visit three days a week. This portrait of a boy is recorded in that gallery from the same year. It left with the imperial collection when the pictures moved to the new Kunsthistorisches Museum, and in 1922 it came back to the Belvedere. The museum dates it only to before 1749. Christian Seybold painted it on copper, a little over 40 centimetres high. The light comes from one side, catching the brow, the nose and the corner of the smile, while the rest of the face slips into soft shadow under a floppy dark cap with a feather pushed through it. Up close, a fine web of cracks runs across the whole paint surface.