The Actress Josefa Hortensia Füger, the Artist's Wife

When her husband painted this, around 1797, Josefa Hortensia Füger had been acting at Vienna's court theatre, the Burgtheater, for 15 years. The daughter of the actor-playwright Johann Heinrich Friedrich Müller, she made her formal debut there in January 1782, playing heroines and young women in love. She married the painter in 1791. Here she looks up from a book, and the Belvedere suggests she is learning a part, though Füger never tells us which. He spent his care on her face. The high ruff at her neck, the white cloth, the shawl are only suggested in a gauzy fabric, and the trees and cloudy sky behind her are just as loose. A red band holds back her curls. Two years later, in September 1799, she gave her last performance on that stage.