O galerie de portrete. Mică istorie a familiei Brukenthal. A Portrait Gallery
A Brief History of the Bruckenthal Family

Summary/Abstract: A Portrait Gallery. A Brief History of the Brukenthal Family. The Brukenthal painting collection contains a very important and numerous portrait gallery of Baron Samuel von Brukenthal’ s family, the founder of the museum. It is not a gallery constituted by Samuel von Brukenthal himself, as he was the first in his family that reached an important position in the social and political life of Transylvania and of the Empire. The gallery was formed by the curators of the museum at the end of the 19th century till the beginning of the 20th century. It represents exquisite value from the documentary and artistic perspectives and offers a journey through the styles that dominated Transylvanian painting from the 18th to the 20th centuries. In presenting this gallery of portraits, the author follows the evolution of the art of portrait in Transylvania and brings biographic information about the most representative members of the family. The artistic quality of this works varies as the painters, belonging to the Transylvanian and Austrian schools, were either famous names that stood in the top of the artistic life at the Viennese Court or, on the contrary, mediocre anonymous. Baron Samuel von Brukenthal is depicted 6 times by artists from Vienna and from Transylvania. Among these, the most imposing work is that by the famous Austrian painter, Georg Weikert (1745-1799). The monumental painting (Baron Samuel von Brukenthal, oil/canvas, 228 x 179 cm, inv. no. 1247) depicts Baron Samuel von Brukenthal in the garments of Saint Stephan Order, in one of the reception rooms of his palace. The painting stresses the important social and political position of the model. Another Portrait of the Baron Samuel von Brukenthal (oil/canvas, 93 x 71 cm, inv. no. 515) has an uncertain paternity. Across time the researchers (Julius Bielz, Theodor Ionescu, Valentin Mureşan) attributed it to the Austrian Court painter Martin Meytens (1695-1770), to the Transylvanian well-known Johann Martin Stock or to an anonymous artist of the Austrian school. The new elements brought by the author of the study regarding this work are those concerning the possible date of the depiction. It is hard to believe that this portrait is only 4-5 years distance from that of Georg Weikert since in the latter the Baron looks at least 10 years older. The author suggests that the decoration of Saint Stephen Order might have been later added by another artists and the work was depicted around the 7th decade of the 18th century.

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