"A single oversized card measuring approximately five by six inches carries photographic portrait reproductions on both faces, an unusual format placing two notable artists in dialogue on a single mount. The front presents an albumen photograph of Wilhelm von Kaulbach, identified in flowing script below the image as Kaulbach, showing the German history painter in middle age in a three-quarter bust turned slightly to his right. Kaulbach wears a dark double-breasted coat with a velvet collar over a loosely knotted patterned cravat and white shirt, his dark hair swept back and parted to one side, his heavy mustache the dominant facial feature, and his gaze directed upward and to his left with an expression of forceful intensity. The reverse presents a photographic reproduction of an engraved portrait of Angelica Kauffman, identified in script below the image as Angelica Kaufman, showing the eighteenth-century painter as a young woman in an elaborate powdered coiffure with long ringlets falling to her shoulders, wearing a low-cut draped dress with a decorative armband visible at her upper right arm. Her expression is composed and slightly smiling, directed three-quarters toward the viewer. No photographer's imprint appears on either face.
The two-sided format was an uncommon presentation method, and the pairing of a contemporary German painter with the most celebrated female painter of the preceding century suggests a deliberate curatorial or collecting interest in the history of German and European art. Both images are mounted on a plain cream card stock with wide margins and script identifications below each image.
Wilhelm von Kaulbach (1805–1874) was one of the dominant figures of German academic history painting, director of the Munich Academy of Fine Arts from 1849, and celebrated for large-scale monumental fresco cycles including those at the Neue Pinakothek and the Neues Museum in Berlin. Angelica Kauffman (1741–1807) was a Swiss-born Neoclassical painter who achieved extraordinary prominence in London and Rome, a founding member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, celebrated for her history paintings and portraits and closely associated with Johann Joachim Winckelmann and the Neoclassical circle in Rome.
No photographer's imprint is visible on either face. The reverse bears dealer code LAWBXZ / 01."
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