(Ljubno 1803–1871 Ljubljana)
“Vilinski Ples” [Dance of the fairies],
oil on canvas, 89.5 x 73.3 cm, framed (the frame rounded in the upper section), (W)

Provenance:
Private Collection, Austria.

Listed and reproduced in:
Ksenija Rozman, Michael Stroj (1803–1871) Narodna Galerija Ljubljana 1971, CR 89, ill. p. 157, no. 91

The Vilinski Ples – the ‘fairytale dance’, translated freely – represents a popular subject in the painting of the Romantic period. Mihael Stroj, who counts amongst the most important Slovenian painters of the 19th century, was able to make a name for himself as a portrait painter of the higher middle class. Numerous commissions came, above all, from Zagreb, where he lived intermittently, and from where he received commissions for portraits even after moving to his native town of Ljubljana. Between 1821–1823 and 1825, he was admitted as a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he received certification from the Austrian Belvedere Gallery for having successfully copied the masterpieces there.
Stroj, whose œuvre comprises almost 400 works, devoted himself particularly to religious subjects, as well as to portraits, still-lifes and genre scenes. His beginnings were oriented towards classicism; his student days in Vienna then sparked his interest in historical painting. He studied Austrian artists such as Johann Peter Krafft exhaustively.