(Albano 1843–1931 Venice)
A beautiful Venitian woman signed (scratched) Eugen von Blaas, oil on panel, 35 x 27 cm, framed

Provenance:
S. Kende, Vienna, 24 May 1933, lot 6;
Private Collection, Vienna.

Eugen Alfons von Blaas grew up in a family of painters and became intimately acquainted with art at a young age. His father Carl von Blaas soon recognised his son’s talent, as well as that of his brother Julius. He supported them with great commitment and, as he himself held a professorship in painting at the Academy in Venice, he was able to follow their studies closely. Even his early paintings show a stylistically confident and technically mature painter with a great sense of composition. After Eugen assisted his father in the years between 1860 and 1872 with the frescoes in the Vienna Arsenal, he moved permanently to Venice at the end of the 1880s. There his artistic activity reached its peak and he painted charming genre scenes and enchanting portraits of ladies. Blaas’ ability to capture the nonchalance and charm of his sitters, mostly pretty young Italian women, was unmatched among his contemporaries. The present lot exemplifies this ability: it shows a young lady with upswept, curly black hair in half-profile.