Portrait Of A Girl - Leopold Carl Muller (1834 - 1892)

Whilst on his travels, Müller painted a series of single-person study portraits to depict the diverse cultures and costumes of the Egyptian peoples. This portrait depicts a fallaha woman - an indigenous rural farmer from the Nile Valley. The fellaheen are one of the oldest populations in Egypt, with their lineage and traditions traceable to the rise of Ancient Egypt. When Müller was in Egypt, the population of fellaheen was substantially higher than it is now - urbanisation has caused many fellaheen to relocate to Egypt’s cities and towns.

Müller has used broad brushstrokes and a lack of detail on the garments worn by the fallaha woman to draw attention to her face. Her eyes - decorated with kohl - gaze downwards and imbue the work with a sense of serenity. It is highly likely that this sympathetic portrait, with its remarkable flesh tones - informed Müller’s staffage in his larger oil paintings.

Leopold Carl Müller

Leopold Carl Müller was born in Dresden in 1834 to Austrian parents and initially trained under his father, a lithographer. He embarked upon formal artistic education at the Viennese Academy, where he studied under Karl von Blaas and Christian Ruben. After his father passed away, Müller worked as an illustrator for a Vienna newspaper in order to support his family. He continued his studies nonetheless, embarking on repeated trips to Italy, Egypt and Hungary, growing a strong reputation for scenes of ordinary life.

In the late 1860s, Müller earned a government stipend to visit the Exposition Universelle in Paris and was struck by the Orientalist movement there. From the early 1870s, he began to make regular trips to Egypt, the Balkans and Turkey, dedicating himself to painting portraits and genre scenes. Müller kept a studio in Cairo, where he would work for many months at a time in order to immerse himself in Egyptian culture to create realistic paintings. In fact, his students called him ‘Müller the Egyptian’.

Müller reached great levels of success throughout Europe, exhibiting in Berlin, Vienna and Dresden. The Prince of Wales in England even personally encouraged Müller to send works to London to exhibit. He worked at the Viennese Academy and taught Ludwig Deutsch, amongst others, and is often considered as the father of the Austrian Orientalist school. Müller passed away in 1892 at the young age of 57, and was buried at the Central Cemetery in Vienna.