Eugen von Blaas

Noferini Collection (and sold, his sale, Galleria Pesaro, Milan, 1934, lot 171, plate LVII)
Property from an Italian Private Collection (and sold, Sotheby's, London, June 14, 2005, lot 225, illustrated)
Acquired at the above sale

Venice, Esposizione nazionale artistica, 1887, sala XVIII, no. 1
Munich, Internationale Kunstausstellung, 1888

"L'Esposizione Artistica Nazionale Illustrata - Venezia 1887", Premiato Stabilimento tipo-litografico dell'Emporio, Venice, 1887, pp. 203-6, illustrated p. 201
V. Mikelli, Esposizione Nazionale di Belle Arti in Venezia. Profili e pensieri, Rome, 1888, pp. 112-113

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This large and impressive work is not lined. It is certainly in very healthy condition, especially for a work of this scale. The painting is clean, varnished and retouched. There is a faintly visible ridge running vertically above the head, which may correspond to a slight scratch. Although this work was not examined under ultraviolet light given its size, the condition is impressive and no retouches are identifiable with the naked eye. It is recommended that the painting be hung as is.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Von Blaas’s paintings of beautiful women are his trademark, and Ninetta is among the most ambitious and accomplished of them. He earned the moniker “Painter of Venetian Beauties” beginning with a series of small portraits in 1881. The lively and accomplished paintings were almost always painted on wood, and he was careful to render each texture and detail with the utmost care (see lots 11 and 20).  In the late 1880’s, he began enlarging his canvas size, allowing life sized or larger representations of his figures (see: Lisa, 1889, 95 by 51 in., sold in these rooms April 20, 2005, lot 15 and The Fruit Seller, 1887, 71¼ by 43½ in., sold in these rooms April 25, 2006, lot 126), and the resulting paintings have an imposing presence.  

In these large paintings, von Blaas adds more complicated elements to the single-figure format and delights in highly finished details throughout the composition. If John William Godward is the “Master of Marble” (see lots 74 and 76), then Eugen von Blaas is the “Maestro of Masonry”; beautifully rendered old brick and stone walls reappear in paintings throughout his career, and he is quick to juxtapose this element of the decaying grandeur of Venice with beautiful young people, baskets of cut flowers, fruit, fresh caught fish and, in this instance, fresh laundry. However, as Wassibauer notes: “he avoided the “Vanitas” theme, the transience of earthly things. Instead his young people live their lives within the old walls of a still-important city, and become links in an apparently endless chain of generations who carry on the Venetian traditions and way of life.” (Thomas Wassibauer, Eugen von Blaas: Das Werk, Hildesheim, 2005, p. 19).

In Ninetta, his virtuoso ability is seen equally in his treatment of the brick walls and stone steps as in his rendering of her voluminous wrapped dress and voluptuous flesh. Wassibauer credits the artist’s ability to paint skin so beautifully to his father’s teachings, writing: “[the artist’s] infinite skill showing glorious flesh tones [used] a technique Eugen learned from his father Karl. In his autobiography, Karl von Blaas describes how he studied Titian’s technique and learned to build up flesh colors using different glazes in order to produce a natural and three-dimensional effect… Eugen’s work with his father in Vienna during the 1860s could still be seen to resonate for the next fifty years of his long career” (Wassibauer, pp. 16-7). Between 1860 and 1872, Eugen often travelled from his Venetian home to visit his father in Vienna, a major center of the art world.  Here the two would paint together and visit exhibitions, and shared a lively correspondence about art when not together. The sitter in Ninetta bears a resemblance to the artist’s wife, Paola Prina, whom he married in 1870 and who frequently modeled for him.

As the critic for Premiato Stabilimento tipo-litografico dell'Emporio mockingly pointed out in his review of the 1887 Esposizione Nazionale: "What disbelief when it was announced that Mr. de Blaas's entry depicted a laundress! A laundress? Are you pulling our leg, Mr. de Blaas? A laundress, this beautiful donnina, so fresh and clean? And in such a charming pose? Is she not a lady, disguised as a laundress? She is definitely not a genuine washerwoman!" (P.S.E., 1887, p. 203)