Portrait of a Nubian Woman is an exquisite example of Müller’s sensitive bust portraits where he depicted different ethnic groups of Egypt. In this painting the artist limits his palette to warm brown tones, juxtaposing loose brushstrokes on the woman’s garments to a smooth matte finish on her face to accentuate her ambiguous expression, a technique that goes back to the Spanish master Velasquez. Müller would have met this model during one of his many visits to Egypt in the 1870s and 1880s. Two similar portraits are in the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore.
Artist Biography
Leopold Carl Müller (1834 -1892) was the most important Viennese Orientalist painter of the 19th Century movement. As a professor at Vienna Academy of Fine Arts he was highly influential teaching Orientalist talents such as Charles Wilda, Rudolf Swoboda, Franz Kosler, and briefly Alfonse Leopold Meilich. Müller is famous for his realist painterly style which focuses on depictions of Egyptian people in portraits and street scenes.
Müller was attracted to Orientalist painting at the Universal Exhibition of 1867 in Paris after viewing the works of Eugène Fromentin. After his first trip to Egypt in 1873-74, Müller debuted as an Orientalist artist with Marktplatz von dem Tore von Kairo (Market Square at the Gates of Cairo, Österreichische Galerie, Vienna). To find subjects for his paintings, he visited Egypt nine times between 1873 and 1886, earning him the nickname “Müller the Egyptian” from his students. One of his most successful trips was in 1881 when he spent two months in Aswan. However, some of these paintings were completed in his studio in Vienna. In 1881 he wrote to his sisters, “Currently, I only wish to paint a picture which reproduces, even to some degree, the magic of this landscape. I wish you could see the picturesque brown and black Arabs, Nubians, Biscahris, and Barabas gathering in the streets in colourful crowds.” Many of his Oriental paintings went to England and Austria via his association with art dealer Henry Wallis and patronage from the Prince of Wales from 1875.
Müller started his career as a student at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts under Carl von Blaas and C. Ruben. But after the death of his father, a famous lithographer who he also trained under, he supported his family by executing illustrations for the Viennese satirical journal Figaro. Müller travelled extensively through Europe, with repeated trips to Venice, Hungary and London. In 1877 he was appointed professor of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and contributed to Aegypten in Bild und Wort by Georg Ebers, published in 1879-80. In 1890 Müller became the Rector.
Bibliography
Dietrun Otten, 9/2009; A.F. Seligmann, Carl Leopold Müller, ein Künsterleben in Briefen, Bildern und Dokumenten, Vienna, 1922: Dr G. Frödl, “Wiener Orientalmalerei im 19. Jahrhundert”, Alte und Moderne Kunst No. 178/179, Vienna, 1981; L. Thornton, The Orientalists, Traveling Painters 1828-1908, A.C.R. Edition, Courbevoie, Paris 1983
