Property from an English Private Collection

ALOIS HEINRICH PRIECHENFRIED (AUSTRIAN 1867-1953)
The connoisseur
signed A Priechenfried (upper right)
oil on board
51.5 x 40.7 cm (20 1/8 x 16 in)

PROVENANCE:
Sale, Christie's, New York, 7 September 2006, lot 197
Gladwell & Company, London
Purchased from the above by the present owner in August 2007

Gentlemen of leisure is a theme that defines all the Priechenfields in the sale – three by Alois Priechenfield – Meditation, The Alchemist and The Connoisseur, and one – The Bibliophile – by his daughter Greta. Beautifully attired in eighteenth century silks and satins, their wigs immaculately powdered, the subject matter offers a pretext for showing elegant men in moments of self-reflection surrounded by the trappings of success, with the world at their feet. The works suggest how the eighteenth century assumed an almost mythical significance for bourgeois Europe of one hundred years later. As the nineteenth century painter Alfred Stevens remarked: ‘The public are attracted to costume subjects in the same way they fall in love with the fancy dress of a masked ball’.

See introduction to lot 358.