FRANZ SERAPH RUSS | MÄDCHEN, DIE GRIECH DOPPELPFEIFE BLASEND (GIRL PLAYING THE GREEK DOUBLE PIPE)

Friedrich Wilhelm Crone, Vienna (by 1877)

C. J. Wawra, Vienna 

Private Collection, Vienna

Vienna, Jahresausstellung, 1875

Vienna, Akademie fur Bildende Künste, 1877

Friedrich von Boetticher, Malerwerke des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, Dresden, 1898, vol. II, p. 495, no. 11

Franz Seraph Russ was a successful portrait and genre painter in Vienna during the second half of the nineteenth century. The son of Franz Russ, a noted portrait painter in his own right, he was born in 1844 and studied at the Vienna Academy under Director Christian Ruben and with Hans Makart.

The present work reflects the stylistic influence of Makart, while his use of color, classical pastoral subject, and sensuous style recalls sixteenth century Venetian painting, particularly Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese. The present work is both an idyll and an allegory of the ages of man: the children are awaking from their slumber and emerging from the darkness, youth takes center stage and is in bathed in full light, while old age quietly fades back into the shadows.

Girl Playing the Greek Double Pipe was exhibited (along with Lute player and Female Singer) in the Vienna Academy exhibition of 1877. The two works were of a similar size and both were owned by Friedrich W. Crone. Crone died in 1895 and the pair may have been split up after his death.