Oskar Kokoschka

Ludwig Quittner, Vienna (acquired directly from the artist in 1906)
Thence by descent to the present owner

The canvas is not lined and UV examination reveals no evidence of retouching. Close inspection reveals scattered pin-sized holes to the canvas, mainly towards all four corners and away from the figure, and a very minor paint loss to the upper left quadrant. Otherwise, this work is in overall good condition. Colours: fairly accurate in the printed catalogue, though the colours are more subtle in the original and slightly less red.
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Ludwig Quittner, a well-to-do Viennese businessman whose first marriage was to the composer Gustav Mahler’s sister Leopoldine, sat for this distinguished portrait by Oskar Kokoschka in 1906. The young artist, a school friend of Quittner’s son Heinrich had asked both Ludwig and his second wife, the concert pianist Marie Fuchsl, to sit for him but family legend has it that Marie refused on the grounds that she was too busy. The picture has remained in the sitter’s family ever since its completion, treasured by generation after generation having been smuggled out of Vienna by Ludwig’s younger son Paul when the family was forced to flee to London at the onset of World War II.

A sumptuously painted and remarkably mature, characterful portrait, the present work is a rare early example of Kokoschka’s talent for painting with both a view to the modern and an eye on the past as well as pointing to the central role that portraiture played in Viennese painting at the turn of the 20th century; a subject so richly examined during a recent major exhibition at The National Gallery: Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900.