It is a great pleasure for us to announce that the beautiful Portrait of the Painter Karl Friedrich Lessing, by R. J. B. Hübner, exhibited TEFAF Maastricht 2023, is now part of the Cincinnati Art Museum collection.
The painting, one of the few known portraits of Lessing to date, among which the group portrait by Hübner at Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin, is a beautiful discovery that enriches the collection of the American Museum.
The importance of this acquisition for the museum, aside from the rarity and outstanding quality of the painting, is in the sitter: the German painter Karl Friedrich Lessing (1808-1880), the great-grandson of the famous German playwright and philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.
Their collection, including over 800 drawings by Lessing, it was still missing a portrait of him.
This substantial nucleus of works was one of the founding gifts of the Museum in 1882!
The psychological insight of the painting is delivered with great intensity through the deep gaze accentuated by the subtle shadow beneath the right eye and by various reflections of vibrant light that surround it. The technical quality is equally evident in the subtly wavy thick hair.
Rudolf Julius Benno Hübner (German, 1806-1882),
Portrait of the Painter Karl Friedrich Lessing, c. 1839,
oil on canvas applied to cardboard, 30 x 24 cm,
Cincinnati Art Museum, Bequest of Mr. and Mrs. Walter J. Wichgar, 2023.59