(Mühlhausen 1697–1753 Vienna)
Portrait of Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria(1718–1744),
oil on canvas, 143.5 x 111 cm, framed

We are grateful to Georg Lechner for endorsing the attribution.

Johann Gottfried Auerbach probably began his artistic career in Berlin. In 1716 he settled in Vienna. His 1725 portrait of Abbot Antonius of Admont brought him such great success that he was commissioned to paint the heads of the Emperor and Count Althann on an allegorical composition by Francesco Solimena – the reasons for this are still unknown- which was dedicated to Kaiser Karl VI (the Emperor who received the first catalogue of the imperial collections by Count Althann, today Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). Soon after this first success, Auerbach received commissions for portraits of members of the Imperial family. In 1735 Karl VI appointed him court painter and in 1741 he was appointed “Kammermaler”. In 1750 he was elected to be a member of the Imperial Academy.

The present painting is a characteristic work by the artist and an interesting historical document. The Archduchess’s short life was eventful: she was the sister of the later Empress Maria Theresia. Both Archduchesses were the only children of Karl VI and Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel to survive into adulthood. Questions about inheritance and the continuation of the dynasty through the “Pragmatic Sanction”, would become the Emperor’s main concerns. Maria Anna was supposed to marry in the successful Habsburg tradition. In 1725, negotiations with the Queen of Spain, Elisabeth Farnese, resulted in the agreement that Maria Anna would eventually become the wife of Philip, Duke of Parma, who was just five. This match was supposed to smooth over relations with Spain. An alliance of Spain and Austria was signed on 30 April 1725 and thus guaranteed the Pragmatic Sanction of the Habsburgs (allowing Maria Theresia, as the eldest daughter, the right to her father’s lands). However, the Anglo-Spanish War saw an end to this plan and, after the death of her father, who had always opposed the union, she was able to marry her brother-in-law, the new emperor’s younger brother Duke Charles Alexander of Lorraine in 1744. Weeks after the marriage, the couple were appointed governors of the Austrian Netherlands. When her husband had to leave to fight for his brother upon the Prussian attack in the first Silesian war, Maria Anna wisely governed the Netherlands until her premature death that same year. Auerbach most probably painted the present portrait between 1741 and 1744.