
Thomas Seaman
Specialist, Head of Sale
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Sold for £89,300 inc. premium
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Specialist, Head of Sale
Provenance
Private collection, UK.
Rudolf Ernst, a native of Vienna, was a member of an extraordinary generation of painters educated at the prestigious Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. In the 1870s and 1880s, the Academy trained painters such as Ludwig Deutsch, Charles Wilda and Jean Discart, under the tutelage of Anselm Feuerbach. Ernst continued his training at the private atelier of August Eisenmenge, before moving to Paris in 1876, where he became a regular exhibitor at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français (despite his Austrian heritage). From the 1880s Ernst undertook travels to Spain, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey, accumulating sketches, photographs, and souvenirs that would form the basis of his Orientalist subjects.
Like the work of his great friend and contemporary Ludwig Deutsch, Ernst surrounded himself with objects, textiles and artefacts collected during his travels - props which populate his paintings. He also visited the extensive Exposition d'Art Musulman, held in Paris in 1893, which would have provided endless inspiration.
In 1889, Ernst's participation in the Exposition Universelle in Paris earned him a bronze medal. He exhibited again at the Exposition Universelle in 1900. Ernst, like Deutsch, would eventually become a naturalised French citizen.