This extremely fine religious work was executed by famous Viennese portrait, miniature and historical painter Johann Nepomuk Ender (1793 Vienna - 1854 ibidem), twin-brother of Austrian landscape painter Thomas Ender. Since 1806 Johann Ender studied at the Academy in Vienna under Maurer, Lampi, Fueger and Caucig and begun to create portraits from 1814. In 1815-1817 he was already a well-known Viennese portraitist. In 1818-1819 Ender travelled together with Count Istvan Szechenyi through Italy, Greece and the Middle East. In 1820 he obtained an academical scholarship for Italy. In 1820-21 he stayed in Florence; in 1821- in Rome, where studied and copied works of Raphael. In 1825 he became a member of Rome Accademia of S.Luca. In 1826-27 returned to Vienna . In 1829-1850 he was a professor of historical painting at the Vienna Academy and, at the same time, very asked portraitist and miniaturist of the Austrian court and members of the Austrian and Hungarian high society. His specialties were portraits of elegant women from the Royal Family and aristocracy, alone or with their children, fashionably dressed, and occasionally in extravagant richly decorated hats. Also historical painting with Biblical subject takes in his art an important position, but the bulk of his livelihood, he earned with portraits.

Provenance: private collection in Austria.

Literature: "Dictionary of Austrian Artists " by Prof. Heinrich Fuchs, Vienna 1974; Thieme/Becker " General artists lexicon".

Inscription: signed lower left.

Technique: oil on parqueted wood. Original period gold-plated frame.

Measurements: unframed w 29" x h 35 3/4" (73,5 x 91 cm ), framed w 38 2/3" x h 45 1/2" (98 x 115,5 cm ).

Condition: very good .