Gustav A. Müller-Koburg (Hildburghausen 1828-1901 Rome)

The present painting holds a special position within the oeuvre of Gustav Adolf Müller-Koburg, whose artistic career was dedicated entirely to genre and portrait painting. The painting exactly repeats Fritz August von Kaulbach's Ein Maientag (A day in Spring), of 1879, whic is considered the first major work of Kaulbach and was acquired in 1879 by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (see K. Zimmermann, Friedrich August von Kaulbach 1850-1920, Monographie und Werkverzeichnis, Munich 1980, p. 163, no. 614). Why the elder Müller-Koburg copied a painting by Kaulbach, is not known. At the time the present lot was painted, he lived in Rome, where he had settled in 1860 to become professor at the Academy Saint Luca, after a successful career with sojourns in Portugal and London.