11207

Professor Johann Nepomuk Oser 1904

Half-length slightly to the left, head turned in three-quarter profile to the viewer, wearing spectacles and a dark jacket and white shirt and tie, a wedding ring on his left hand

Oil on canvas, 85.1 x 66 cm (33 ½ x 26 in.)

Inscribed lower right: László F.E. / 1904 VII   

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 49: Dr. Johann Oser [among other signatures dated 1900]

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 67: Dr. Johann Oser  4 Juli 1904

Private Collection

The Oser family were part of de László’s circle before his move to Vienna in 1904. The sitter, his wife Josephine [11810] and daughter Hedwig, signed the artist’s Sitters' Book on the same page as the signature, dated 12 December 1900, of Joseph Joachim [5850], the celebrated Hungarian violinist and Josephine Oser’s mother’s cousin. Joachim and Frau Oser were both painted by de László in 1900 and the present portrait was painted as a pendant to that of his wife. They remain in their identical frames. In 1905 the sitter commissioned a portrait of his daughter Bertha [10135] before her marriage to Herman Nohl and their departure to live in Berlin. Another version [10088] was rejected and unsigned.

It was through the Oser and Wittgenstein families, and especially the sitter’s brother-in-law Karl Wittgenstein, that the newly married de Lászlós became closely acquainted with the musical and artistic circles of Vienna after their move to the Austrian capital in 1904. Lucy de László was classically trained on the violin by respected teachers in Europe and the artist regularly sang for guests at evenings he attended. During their time in Vienna they were introduced to important figures such as: Joseph Joachim, the young Pablo Casals,^[1] Bruno Walter,^[2] and the pianist Paul Wittgenstein, son of Karl. De László painted Karl Wittgenstein’s wife Leopoldine [9929] in 1904.

Johann Nepomuk Oser was born on 8 April 1833 in Grafenegg in Lower Austria, son of Johann Oser (1799-1866) and his wife Barbara, née Edlinger (1805-1883). His father was a forestry commissioner to Graf Breunner-Enkevoith from Grafenegg, with estates in the Danube region.^[3] Grafenegg Castle was the birthplace of two de László’s sitters, the Duchess of Ratibor, née Countess Maria Breunner-Enkevoith [110797] and Countess Camillo Stubenberg, née Countess Gabriele Breunner-Enkevoith [110509], both granddaughters of Graf Breunner-Enkevoith.

Oser was educated at the monastery school of Melk on the Danube and later studied at the Academy of Forestry in Mariabrunn near Graz. He obtained a doctorate in philosophy at Graz University and then went to Paris where he studied chemistry. He returned to Mariabrunn as Professor of Chemistry, transferring in 1876 to the Polytechnical High School for Inorganic Chemistry in Vienna as Dean of the Chemistry School and later served as Rector.  

In September 1872 he married Josephine Wittgenstein (1844-1933), daughter of Hermann Wittgenstein (1802-1878) from Leipzig and his wife Fanny, née Figdor (1813-1890). There were four children of the marriage: Hedwig (born 1873), Franz (born 1874), Bertha (born 1878) and Lydia (born 1882). One of his granddaughters remembers Oser as hiding a very gentle nature beneath a fierce exterior.^[4] He was a very sociable person and enjoyed hunting and parties. The honorary title Hofrat^[5] [Court Councillor] was conferred on him in recognition of his academic work. He died 1 November 1912.

PROVENANCE:

By descent in the family

LITERATURE:

•De Laszlo, Sandra, ed., & Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, asst. ed., A Brush with Grandeur, Paul Holberton publishing, London, 2004, p. 95, ill.

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 221

•Schleinitz, Otto von, Künstler Monographien, n° 106, Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1913, p. 80

CWS & BS 2020