(Schrobenhausen 1836–1904 Munich) Self Portrait with Daughter Marion, signed and dated F. Lenbach 1894, oil on canvas, 81.5 x 65.5 cm, framed, (Rei)

Franz von Lenbach only began to devote himself to painting in 1852. The following year he began his studies at Munich’s Akademie der Bildenden Künste under Hermann Anschütz. In 1857 he moved to the painting class of the renowned historical painter Karl Theodor von Piloty. Lenbach journeyed to Italy with his teacher and fellow students in the following year. The multiplicity of colours and shapes and the active life in the South had a demonstrable influence on his creative work. Excited by these impressions and the painting en plein air on this trip, back in Germany Lenbach executed paintings of such intense colour and so close to nature that Piloty arranged to have him commended to the newly founded academy in Weimar. However, the artist returned to Munich two years later, in 1862, to take up a grant from the patron of the arts, Adolf Friedrich von Schack, to copy the great Italian and Spanish masters. Working closing with the paintings of Titian, Rubens and Rembrandt influenced his own work. He increasingly used tonal colours and concentrated mainly on the genre of portrait painting. Following the example of the old masters, he lit only the face and gave the paintings an artificially created patina to accentuate the importance of the sitter.
Lenbach turned his focus to portrait painting. The group of studio artists around the already much acclaimed Hans Makart in Vienna increasingly influenced his portraits, and also facilitated his entry into more distinguished social circles. He travelled together with Makart to Egypt. Even in his own lifetime Lenbach enjoyed the sobriquet of “Painter-prince” of Munich, with his portrait of Pope Leo XIII marking the peak of his artistic and social achievements. (Cf. Bruckmanns Lexikon der Münchner Kunst, Münchner Maler im 19. Jahrhundert, Vol. 3. p. 43-44.)