Oil on canvas; inscribed on a label on the reverse: Ludw. Ferd, Graf / Porträt d. chines. Gesandten / Yang Tscheng
215 x 140 cm.
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Vienna until sold at Im Kinsky, Vienna, 19 June 2018, lot 329
EXHIBITED
1906 Vienna, 19th Hagenbund Exhibition, III-VII/1906, cat.no.11 (with b/w ill.);
1907 Venice, 7th Biennale di Venezia, Venice, cat.no.8;
1908 Dresden, Great Art Exhibition, V-X, cat.no.1408;
1909 Merano, Hagenbund Exhibition, spring;
1911 Prague, Special Exhibition of the Hagenbund in the Art Association for Bohemia, XI-XII, cat.no.85;
1914 Göding/Moravia, Hagenbund Exibition, V-VIII, cat.no.15;
1925 Vienna, 50th Hagenbund exhibition, V-VI, cat.no.3 (with the dating 1906);
1933 Vienna, Hagenbund memorial Exibition, 6-28 November, cat.no.24 (with the same dating, b/w ill.);
1993 Schloss Halbturn, Die verlorene Moderne. Der Künstlerbund Hagen 1900-1938, 7 May to 26 October 1993, cat.no.56.
In this arresting full-length portrait, more than two metres in height, the Austrian painter Ludwig Ferdinand Graf depicts the important Chinese diplomat, politician, ambassador and minister, Yang Tscheng (also known as Yang Tcheng or Yang Sheng) in 1906, at the time of his appointment as Minister (ambassador) to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This canvas is a rare and extraordinary testimony to the attire, symbols and image of a leading scholar-official at the end of Qing dynasty - and therefore a rare opportunity to deepen the understanding of a Chinese state portrait - but conducted as a manifesto of Viennese Impressionist painting. Unsurprisingly this canvas - a celebration of both the sitter and the artist - remained one of the most ambitious, iconic and published in Graf’s oeuvre - celebrated in numerous international exhibitions, including the VII Biennale di Venezia in 1907.