.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Born in Graz, where he trained under Matthias Vangus, Franz Christoph Janneck moved to Vienna in the 1730s but would spend most of the decade traveling throughout Austria and southern Germany before settling permanently in the Austrian capital in 1740. There, he enrolled at the Viennese Academy, and eventually held the post of Assessor from 1752 to 1758, supervising the administration of the Academy alongside his fellow artists Paul Troger (1698-1762) and Michelangelo Unterberger (1695-1758).
Like his friend Johann Georg Platzer, Janneck was celebrated for his highly finished, jewel-like cabinet pictures – often on a luminous copper support – composed of numerous, richly attired figures. These paintings enjoyed considerable appeal in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, taking inspiration from the works of a number of the most expensive artists in the period, including Frans van Mieris, Adriaen van der Werff and Jean-Antoine Watteau. Indeed, this painting was formerly in the exceptional collection of the Duke of Hamilton at Hamilton Palace, where it could be viewed alongside its pendant depicting the Raising of Lazarus (Musée du Louvre, Paris, on deposit at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours; see Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours: Guide des Collections, Paris, 1998, no. 75, as dating to circa 1750).
Like his friend Johann Georg Platzer, Janneck was celebrated for his highly finished, jewel-like cabinet pictures – often on a luminous copper support – composed of numerous, richly attired figures. These paintings enjoyed considerable appeal in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, taking inspiration from the works of a number of the most expensive artists in the period, including Frans van Mieris, Adriaen van der Werff and Jean-Antoine Watteau. Indeed, this painting was formerly in the exceptional collection of the Duke of Hamilton at Hamilton Palace, where it could be viewed alongside its pendant depicting the Raising of Lazarus (Musée du Louvre, Paris, on deposit at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours; see Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours: Guide des Collections, Paris, 1998, no. 75, as dating to circa 1750).