Magyar történelmi témák 18. századi bécsi festői: adatok Wenzel Pohl munkásságához és az August Rumelnek tulajdonított Mohácsi csata-képhez = 18th Century Viennese Painters of Hungarian Historical Themes: Addenda to Wenzel Pohl’s Work and the Battle of Mohács Painting Attributed to August Rumel

• Published in: Művészettörténeti Értesítő
• Main Author: Papp, Júlia
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Hungarian
• Published: Akadémiai Kiadó 2022
• Subjects: N Visual arts (General) For photography; see TR / vizuális művészet általában; NX4 Art history and criticism / művészettörténet; műkritika; sami
• Online Access: http://real.mtak.hu/176400/; http://real.mtak.hu/176400/1/080-article-p233.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1556/080.2022.00015

Media news made the name of Wenzel Pohl known in Hungary in the early 2000s, for the two large history paintings (The Battle of Mohács, Saint Stephen converting the Hungarians to the Christian faith), which had cropped up in the art trade and which were purchased by the Hungarian state and deposited in the Hungarian embassy in Vienna, were attributed to him. Although more recent research has proposed that the painter of the cycle once consisting of six pieces was most probably August Rumel and not Pohl, it is worth knowing of Pohl’s artistic activity irrespective of the Hungarian relevance, too, because his person is gradually fading out of art historiography – for example, his name is missing from the 96th volume of the Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon published in 2017. The best-known Pohl portraits are the ones he painted of the noted Jesuit astronomer, mathematician and physicist Miksa Hell. A full-figure portrait shows the scientist in traditional Sami costume during his research trip to the North, and we know of a portrait showing Hell is a monk’s frock. His engraved copies of paintings in the Viennese imperial collection, real forerunners to the representative 19th century album of prints presenting the collection, probably belong to a series. In the cycle of paintings about the coronation of Joseph II as Holy Roman Emperor (Frankfurt, 1765) he was assigned the painting of architectural details, which is confirmed by the fact that he was sent on a study trip to Frankfurt to make drawn sketches of the venues of the event. After the representative painting of Martin van Meytens he made a small-scale version of the group portrait of Maria Theresa and her family. His chef d’oeuvre is the representative painting series showing the events of the coronation of Maria Theresa in Pozsony in 1741 painted for the Hungarian Court Chancellery in Vienna. He painted it with Franz Messmer in the second half of the 1760s. In contrast, the three portraits of monarchs in Riesensaal in Innsbruck so far attributed to him by ...