Woman in a Blue Dress Albert von Keller

Swiss-born Albert von Keller, who became semi-orphaned at an early age, originally intended to read law but eventually opted to study painting in Munich. He soon gained a reputation for his paintings and received many commissions. In the first half of his career, the socialite artist mostly produced salon paintings of elegant ladies and their servants in fashionable and sumptuous interiors. Between 1880 and 1900, the second period of his career, he was particularly interested in paranormal phenomena and spiritism, under the influence of the occultist movement of Gabriel von Max. His fame and prestige continued to grow, and he was elevated to the nobility in 1898.
The painting Woman in a Blue Dress was first owned by the last lord of Krasznahorkai Castle, Count Dénes Andrássy, and was displayed in the castle’s picture gallery. After the count’s death in 1912, it was transferred to the Museum of Fine Arts in accordance with his will. The work depicts the pretty, yet melancholic and yearning female ideal of the turn of the century.

Bianka Boda