Anselm Feuerbach - self-portraits

1873.

Anselm Feuerbach (12 September 1829, Speyer – 4 January 1880, Venice), German painter, one of the leading German classicist artists of the nineteenth century.  The son of a well-known archaeologist, from 1845 and 1848 he attended the Düsseldorf Academy, and later at the Munich Academy.  But in 1850, along with other dissatisfied students of the Academy, he went to study in Antwerp.  The next year he moved to Paris, where he was a pupil of Thomas Couture until 1854.

Circa 1840s.

1847.

That same year, under the patronage of the Grand Duke of Baden, he visited Venice, where he was very influenced by the work of the great Venetian masters.  He then moved on to Florence and Rome; but for brief trips home, he was to remain in Rome for almost twenty years.  In 1873, Feuerbach was appointed professor of History painting at the Vienna Academy, but after only a few years, he resigned his post and went to live in Venice.  He died there a few years later at the age of fifty.

1852.

1852.

1853.

1854.

1854.

1857.

1871.

1875.

1878.

1878.

***

Circa 1860s.

And in case one wonders if the artist might have given himself, in all his many self-portraits, a not entirely earned glamor, or a shade more physical beauty than in reality he possessed, it appears he really was that dashing and quite good-looking.