6196 - Kosler, Franz Xaver

Kosler, Franz Xaver Portrait of an Arab in traditional dress with a red turban. Oil on canvas. 60 x 40 cm. Signed "F. Kosler" on the right. Franz Xaver Kosler is one of the most important representatives of late 19th-century Viennese Orientalist painting. After training at the Vienna Academy, where he first studied under Christian Griepenkerl and then at the Special School for Historical Painting under the Orientalist Leopold Carl Müller, he traveled to Egypt repeatedly beginning in the early 1890s. An exhibition of his works in Cairo in 1894 established his reputation there and earned Kosler numerous portrait commissions, including one from Prince Said Halim Pasha. In the years that followed, Kosler regularly spent the winter months in Egypt and, in addition to his well-known market and street scenes, created a large number of striking portraits. This bust portrait exemplifies Kosler’s exceptional talent as a portraitist. Against a light, neutral background, the artist focuses the viewer’s attention entirely on the subject’s noble face, which is framed by a white cloth and a red headband. The finely modeled facial features and the subtly graded lighting, combined with the painterly precision, lend the portrait an immediate physiognomic presence. Kosler treats his model with respect and emphasizes the subject’s personality, which is defined by his calm gaze, upright posture, and the simple grandeur of the bust portrait. The bust portrait of the young Arab man with a red turban is an outstanding example of his Oriental portrait painting. - Please request condition reports for the lots, as the condition is listed in the catalog only in exceptional cases. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog.