Angeli Heinrich (Anton) von
(b Odenburg [now Sopron, Hungary], 8 July 1840; d Vienna, 21 Oct
1925). Austrian painter. In 1853 he moved to Vienna to live with his
uncle, who was a collector and a friend of the painters Friedrich
von Amerling and Mathias Ranftl (1805–54). Angeli’s early
Self-portrait reflects the precocious maturity of his style, and in
1854 he enrolled at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna. In
1856, on the advice of Amerling, he went to study under Emanuel
Gottlieb Leutze in Düsseldorf, where he executed one of his most
significant history paintings, Mary Stuart Reading her Death Warrant
(1857). In 1859 he moved to Munich, where he worked independently
and was encouraged by Karl Theodor von Piloty, producing the history
paintings Ludwig XI and Franz de Paula (1859) and Antony and
Cleopatra for Ludwig I of Bavaria. In 1862 he again settled in
Vienna, where he enjoyed increasing success. The life-size portrait
of Baronin Seidler and the genre painting Avengers of Honour (1869),
both exhibited at the Weltausstellung in Vienna in 1873, secured his
reputation. After brief stays in Paris and Berlin (c. 1866), he went
in 1871 to Italy, where he painted numerous portraits and the genre
work Absolution Denied. His final genre paintings, Youthful Love
(sold London, Sotheby’s, 3 Oct 1980) and Calabrian Shepherd Couple,
also date from this year. Henceforth he devoted himself entirely to
portrait painting, receiving important commissions from such
aristocratic circles as the Kinsky and Auersperg families (e.g. Graf
Anton Alexander Auersperg, 1876; Vienna, Präsidium des
Nationalrates). Whereas his early portraits were influenced by
Amerling, Anton Einsle and 17th-century Dutch art, from the 1870s he
developed his own elegant and restrained style. This helped him to
obtain commissions at the courts of Vienna, St Petersburg and London
(e.g. Queen Victoria on the Throne, 1885; Windsor Castle, Berks,
Royal Col.). As well as these imposing portraits, he created such
portrait studies as that of Franz Grillparzer, the Austrian
dramatist (1791–1872). In 1876 he was appointed professor of a
Spezialschule at the Akademie in Vienna and was President of the
Künstlerhaus, Vienna, until 1910.
