.Bearded Jew.

VON STRASCHIRIPKA, JOHANN (HANS CANON)

Austrian, 1829-85

Oil on canvas. Signed in red along left margin. Finely framed.

The artistic career of Austrian portrait painter Johann von Straschiripka began at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but was put on hold by his military service in the Austro-Hungarian Common Army, which inspired the name “Hans Canon.” After much travel he returned to Vienna where he became celebrated for a series of monumental paintings that adorned distinguished public buildings along the Ringstrasse. He was often commissioned by Vienna’s Jewish nouveau riche to paint their portraits to resemble nobility, much to the disdain of a Viennese contemporary journalist, one Theodor Herzl of the Neue Freie Presse.