(Graz 1703–1761 Vienna)
A Dance in the Palace Gardens,
signed lower right: F. C. Janneck fc.,
oil on copper, 44.5 x 59.8 cm, framed

Provenance:
with Richard Green, London;
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 4 December 1973, lot 70;
Private collection, Germany

The present painting is a masterpiece by Franz Christoph Janneck. Originally from Graz, Janneck arrived in Vienna between 1726 and 1730, where he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts and met Johann Georg Platzer, who was of the same age. Their close friendship would have a decisive impact on the artist’s future career. Having completed his studies, Janneck, like Platzer, was to devote himself to the delicate and narrative painting style typical of the Flemish and Dutch tradition. The artist mainly looked back to the art of Adriaen van der Werff, a follower of Willem van Mieris and Caspar Netscher. Similar to Platzer’s art, Janneck’s subject matter comprised of festive and elegant parties, as well as religious scenes. The art historiographer Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn greatly appreciated Janneck, relying on him for information about other artists in his publications. Hagedorn commissioned Janneck to compose paintings of a sculptor’s and a painter’s studio, in which Janneck included portraits of his colleagues Orient, Canton, and Schinnagl, as well as a self-portrait. Hagedorn compared the artist to Adriaen van der Werff, writing: ‘Its companion piece, Sculpture, the painting of a sculptor’s studio, is the most exquisite work by Janneck that I have ever laid eyes on. Executed in Van der Werff’s diligent manner, it must have cost more than 1,000 guilders’ (quoted from U. Becker, Nicht jedermanns Geschmack; Johann Georg Platzer, in: Delikatesse der Malerei – Meisterwerke von Johann Georg Platzer, Graz, 2007, p. 13). Occasionally, Janneck also painted individual portraits of artists, and frequently added figures and animals to the landscapes of Orient and Schinnagl.

Elfriede Baum writes on Janneck’s painting Outdoor Party Entertained with Wine and Song (see E. Baum, in: Katalog des Österreichischen Barockmuseums im Unteren Belvedere in Wien, Vienna, 1980, vol. II/1, pp. 253/54): ‘In the seventeenth century, the subject matter of the musical entertainment of an elegantly dressed party, accompanied by culinary delights and in pleasant surroundings, represented one of the ideal notions of the bourgeois and courtly worlds, whose lack of realism was additionally emphasised through historical costumes. Aside from the Dutch and Flemish models, the French ‘fêtes galantes’ played an important role, although the Viennese painters don’t seem to have intended to be a serious competition […]. However, the intimate character of these small-sized compositions invite for a comparison with popular chamber music, which had its heyday at the time.’ With such ‘society pieces’, Janneck was a direct rival to his friend Platzer.

The pendant to the present painting, Embarkment for Kythira, is preserved in the Deutsche Barockgalerie, Augsburg (inv. no. 651).