Franz Christoph Janneck | Baroque Era style

The celebrated Austrian painter Franz Christoph Janneck (Graz 1703 - Vienna 1761) was born in Graz, where he initially trained under Matthias Vangus. In the 1730s, Janneck moved to Vienna, but would spend most of the decade traveling throughout Austria and southern Germany, returning to the Austrian capital in 1740. There, he enrolled at the Viennese Academy, and eventually held the post of Assessor from 1752-1758, supervising the administration of the Academy alongside his fellow artists Paul Troger (1698-1762) and Michelangelo Unterberger (1695-1758).

Together with his friend Johann Georg Platzer (1740-1761), Janneck specialized in small, highly finished, jewel-like cabinet pictures of elegant figures dressed in contemporary or mythological costume, often executed on copper. Known as conversation pieces, these works were prized for their sparkling tonality and minute attention to detail, and owe much to the elegant scenes of the French Rococo painter, Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). Typically lavish in conception and detail, the present two paintings include a profusion of objects and textures, all designed to produce an air of opulence and preciousness while highlighting the artist’s consummate skill as a painter. 

Janneck paid particular attention to the decorative settings of his interior genre scenes, of which the present two paintings are among the finest examples. These extravagant architectural fantasies show the influence of the Austrian Baroque and include architectural features derived from the works of Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656-1723) and Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt (1668-1745). | © CHRISTIE'S

Franz Christoph Janneck (Graz 1703 - Vienna 1761) ed il suo amico pittore sudtirolese Johann Georg Platzer, quasi coetaneo, anch’egli attivo a Vienna, che dipingeva in uno stile analogo, erano i principali esponenti di una pittura di genere elegante in area germanofona. Nelle loro opere migliori sia Janneck che Platzer sono senz’altro all’altezza di pittori francesi come Pater e Lancret. Come Platzer, Janneck era un rappresentante artistico di Vienna, la città imperiale, che dopo la vittoria dell’Austria nelle guerre contro i Turchi era divenuta la raffinata metropoli europea per eccellenza. 

La presenza della corte, dell’aristocrazia e della borghesia benestante crearono le basi materiali per la fioritura impareggiabile delle arti in questa città. Mentre nella pittura tedesca ed austriaca del Settecento le iconografie dominanti erano quelle religiose, essendo la Chiesa il maggior committente, per Janneck e Platzer questo tipo di soggetti era invece piuttosto l’eccezione. | Esperto: Prof. Dr. Peter Wolf