Carl von Blaas - Buy or sell works
28 April 1815, Nauders (Austria) - 19 March 1894, Vienna (Austria)
Carl von Blaas was known during his lifetime as a historical and portrait painter and received numerous public commissions.
Carl von Blaas was born in 1815 in Nauders (Tyrol) as the son of a family in humble conditions. The financial support of his uncle made it possible for him to study under Lodovico Lipparini at the Academy of Venice. Already during his studies, he won several art prices and received numerous portrait commissions.
After a two-year stay in Munich, at the beginning of 1837, Carl von Blaas received a five-year scholarship for studies in Rome for his painting "Moses on Mount Sinai." There he became acquainted with Friedrich Overbeck and the circle of the Nazarenes, who strongly influenced his art. He studied the old masters, especially Raphael, and devoted himself more and more to religious themes and genre scenes. One of the paintings created during this period is "Maria Heimsuchung" (The Visitation of the Virgin), thematically and stylistically clearly in the tradition of the Nazarenes.
In 1850, he painted religious allegories and scenes from the lives of Jesus and Mary at the parish church Art-Lerchenfeld in Vienna. In 1851 he was appointed a professor of historical painting at the Vienna Academy. During the Paris World Fair in 1855, his painting „Karl der Große besucht die Schule der Knaben" (Charlemagne visits the school for Youths" was awarded a prize. In the same year, he was called to a professorship at the Venice Academy, where he taught from 1856 to 1866. In 1867 Blaas became a member of the Vienna Künstlerhaus. Among his most famous works are the frescoes with scenes from Austrian history, which he created for the Hall of Fame of the Imperial Weapons Museum, today the Museum of Military History in Vienna. For this work, which took a total of 14 years to complete, Carl von Blaas received the Cross of a Commander of the Franz-Joseph-Order and was knighted. His style increasingly turned away from the Nazarenes and towards a classical, naturalistic style of painting. In 1876 Blaas published his autobiography in Vienna. His sons Julius (1845 - 1922) and Eugen (1843 - 1931) also became renowned painters.
At a special auction in 2011 at Tannenmühle Castle, the family seat of the Blaas, the Dorotheum auctioned numerous works of all members of this family of artists, among them numerous works by Carl von Blaas.