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# 31028
Alois Gustav Rockstuhl (1798-1877) "Portrait of Tsar Nikolai I", important miniature on porcelain!!
Price: ON REQUEST
(please note additional 10% tax applies for transactions concluded within the European Union)
On the 25th of June 2009 this work was offered at Vienna's auction house "Dorotheum" as a miniature on ivory with portrait of an unknown military officer. Following a fierce "fight" with other bidders, we were finally able to acquire this portrait (knowing of course beforehand who the portrayed sitter was) for the amount ten times higher than the original start price. As we took this miniature out of its frame, we discovered that its base is not ivory but a ca. 3mm-thick porcelain plaque. On verso of the plaque (initially fixed, covered by backing) an old authentic inscription (signature?) came to light: Alois Rockstuhl.
Hence, we are dealing here with a very important work of the famous 19th-century Russian Court miniaturist, Alois Gustav Rockstuhl. This miniature, painted on porcelain (thereafter covered with glaze) portrays Tsar Nikolai I. He is depicted wearing a dark uniform with red collar embroidered with gold and gold epaulettes. Additionally, he is wearing a blue moiré sash and a breast-star of the Imperial Russian order of St. Andrew, breast-star of St. Vladimir, a badge for the Turkish Campaign of 1828-1829 and a badge of the Order of the Crown of Wuerttemberg. It is one of Rockstuhl's typical (see our image nr.9 with his biography) miniature portraits based upon the famous large oil portrait by Franz Krueger (see our image nr.10). Our image nr.11 shows similiar portrait (also on porcelain but much larger; probably also by Rockstuhl) in the collection of the House of Orange-Nassau.
Alois Gustav (in Russian Aloisi Petrovich) Rockstuhl was born in 1798 in Goldingen by Vilnius (Lithuania) as son of the well known Miniaturist Peter Ernst Rochstuhl (1764-1824 St.Petersburg). He studied from 1832 at the St.Petersburger Imperial Academy of Fine Arts and in 1835 was raised by the Academy to the rank of 'non-class artist' "for recognized success in oil and miniature painting". In 1840 to "academician" , becoming then a professor of the Academy (see signature on our miniature!). 1842 he was called to the "Cabinet of Her Majesty" and received the rank of "Painter of Her Imperial Majesty". He was also appointed Director of the Museum of Tsarskoselski Arsenal in Mon Bijou. Rockstuhl's work consisted exclusively of painting miniatures for the royalties, Russian and foreign .
Images nr.18-21 show several Rockstuhl's miniatures offered at art auctions in the last years
mijuli27ap09
Condition: good; in original 19th-century easel-frame (glazed)
Creation Year: ca 1850
Measurements:UNFRAMED:5,2x3,7cm/2,0x1,5in FRAMED: 10,8x9,4cm/4,3x3,7in
Object Type:Framed miniature
Style: Portrait Miniatures
Technique: porcelain painting
Inscription:verso is signed (?): Alois Rockstuhl
Creator: Alois Gustav (Aloisi Petrovich) Rockstuhl
Creator Dates: 1798 Goldingen-1877 St. Petersburg
Nationality:German / Russian
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