Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

 

Ludwig Michalek

 

c. 1900  

drypoint and etching 

4 x 3" image; 6-1/4 x 3-3/4" platemark 

pencil, beneath image, lower right 

not stated 

name engraved beneath iamge, lower left: "L. Michalek sc."; pencil titled and dated "1913" in unidentified hand, lower right sheet corner 

British Museum accession no. 1908,1212.3 

heavy antique-white wove 

published 

artist 

24509 

$200.00 

Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) was an Austrian novelist, poet, and playwright, and is considered one of the most important psychological fiction writers of 19th and early 20th century Germany. Though never formally educated, she was given an honorary doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vienna upon her 70th birthday.

In a lengthy article written in August of 1894 the Atlantic noted of Ebner-Aechenbach:

Her heroes and heroines are adult, sharply individualized men and women. Her plots are carried forward to the end with utmost simplicity of means, and with a suave firmness of touch that is classical, and which has never yet been so fully acquired save where the writer’s pen has been trained in the severe drill of metrical composition and dramatic condensation, then exercised upon broader and freer tasks. In truth, if Marie von Ebner had a sufficient number of peers, German short stories would soon rise above their present reputation of uncouthness, and be placed by common accord in the fore ranks of polished fiction.

Ludwig Michalek, painter and printmaker, was known for his portraiture, particularly of noted Germans. This elegant drypoint was done after the photograph by Josef Szekely (Hungarian: 1838 - 1901). It should be noted that the date written on this work in an unidentified hand, "1913", is not accurate to the British Museum's record of acquisition, which occured in 1908.