Portrait of a Gentleman

This man was painted as a companion to the older lady in the lace bonnet. The two panels are exactly the same size, 53 by 42.5 centimetres. Hers is dated 1849 and his a year later. Neither sitter is named. Eybl shows him in a dark coat, a pale waistcoat and a black silk cravat tied high under a stiff white collar, set against a plain brown ground, and he paints the reddened nose without softening it. The pair came down through the Ellger family of Ladendorf, a village in Lower Austria north of Vienna, and was part of Karl Ellger's estate in 1978. The portraits later belonged to Marie Walther in Vienna, and her bequest brought both of them to the Belvedere in 2019.